Abortion

[Efstathios]

NOCTVRNVS

Sure, of course death can be used as a punishment -- does that mean it IS a punishment? confused Going to your room can be a punishment when you're a kid, but then again you go to your room to sleep too.

If it's not a punishment then stop saying that we shouldn't be punishing something that is innocent. Make up your mind.

NOCTVRNVS

You're not religious, that's fine, no need to get indignant about it. You did reference God in your last post so I'm sure you can see where my assumption is based. Fact remains, for people who believe in it God's Word according to the Bible dictates against abortion. The child being unappreciated is totally irrelevant to the case of abortion as the Bible sees it; abusing the child would be a sin on the heads of the parents, while the child has not necessarily done anything wrong. He deserves a chance regardless of his environment because, abused or not, every person has the capacity to follow the way of God, which is the reason for life in the first place. It is the sinful parents who will be truly punished while the child, granted it follows the right path, will find peace.

That's O.K. then. People who believe in God the Bible will not be forced to have abortions, so all of that is immaterial when it comes to secular law. Christians do not have the right to enforce their religious views on the rest of humanity, only on their own congregation. We're not arueing whether your christian girlfriend should get an abortion, only over whether they should be legal for Atheists, Agnostics, Buddhists, Deists, Gnostics, Hindus, Pagans, Taoists, Wiccans...

NOCTVRNVS

Under natural law the baby does not die, you're incorrect. Firstly, it does not benefit the human species to kill the child, and second, surgical procedures are not considered natural law to begin with.

I merely stated that in nature, if you don't like something that is alive and weaker than you, it will die. There are actually many animals that will sponateously abort or reabsorb the fetal material if conditions are unsuitable for birth. So even in nature, when the parent is in conditions unsuitable to bring a child into, the parent will not bring a child into that environment

NOCTVRNVS

As for cancer, chemotherapy I know little of, and care little for. Putting chemicals in your body may help numb your cancer but it can't be too good for you otherwise. It wouldn't much bother me if we just let nature take its course with these things, which I am saying with a few of my relatives dead from smoking-induced cancer. They got plenty of chemo but my grandmother still died at 60. But in either case, your comparison is ridiculous! Chemotherapy PREVENTS death. Abortion IS death; it does not prevent death even if it saves the mother's life, because it only saves her by killing someone else. Kind of like how the president's bodyguard doesn't prevent death, he just prevents the PRESIDENT's death by dying himself.

My arguement there was just that it was a medical procedure, unnatural, that is considered a good thing. If it saves the mother's life it does, in fact prevent a death even if it does (in your opinion) cause another. It is legal to deny someone something that results in their death in any case. Shimp vs. McFall, which I brought up ages ago.

NOCTVRNVS

I'd like to see you prove that children being aborted have no will. You can't, because all children that have been aborted are (surprise) dead! Pure speculation. And I wonder, if it's not our place to judge then why is it okay to judge who is to die in this situation? Which was my question in the first place. We are not to judge which innocent must die, when the decision will make itself anyway.

Will, personality, desires, etc all exist in the brain. While the fetus may have brain matter at the time it is aborted, it has no cognition. No thoughts, and thus no will. Your best arguement here would be from Roe vs. Wade, (From the losing side, true) That the laws against abortion are based on the fetus's potential will, y'know 6 years later it might be able to say "I'm glad I wasn't aborted, then I couldn't go to disneyworld!" or it might be severely developmentally delayed 25 yrs old continuely raped in care home because though the debilitating illness was detected in the womb, abortion was illegal. All the time the only thought it can conjure is a nonverbal feeling of "God, when will this end, what did I do to deserve this?"

NOCTVRNVS

On the same day, two children were born in Austria -- one was perfect and beautiful, the other was diagnosed with Down syndrome. At the time abortion was illegal, Thank God -- the normal child was named Adolf Hitler. Now, the other would have been aborted instead. Why is it not okay to judge women who kill their own children, while it's fine to judge infants before they are even born?

Whether or not abortion was legal doesn't change what Adolf became. On the other hand, if Adolf's mother didn't have the means to support him and abortion had been legal...
I think that aborting a child you cannot/will not care for is more responsible, even if it results in a bit of eugenics.
People judge potentialities all the time, but according to Bible, since you like bringing it in occasionally, the child should obey it's mother to the death, she owns it, essentially. Therefore she has the right to kill it. Same with modern law, it's in her body, therefore she has the right to kill it.

NOCTVRNVS

And besides, let's face it. If the child was two years old, as opposed to unborn, would you still think it was okay for the mother to decide which of them is going to die in a situation where it is definite? Such as holding her child up as protection from a gunshot. Or jumping off a burning building on top of her child to prevent her from dying.

If a child can survive outside it's mother's body that's a different story and already covered by law. See Planned Parenthood of (South Dakota?) Vs. Casey. Post viability abortions are a no go unless they threaten the life of the mother, even then if she says save the baby, they have to do it.

NOCTVRNVS

You obviously don't understand "taking scripture out of context". If you are capable of understanding the concept of a parable then there is no question as to what "nor shall children be put to death for their fathers" means. Never should a person's life be taken because of the acts of their father (or mother in this case), which is exactly what abortion is. If the child is not being put to death because of the actions of his mother or father, then WHY is the child being put to death? Don't even answer that because there is no answer, other than that abortion is killing a child because of the actions of his mother. As for the Psalm, yes, it is a song -- one about the gift of children who are sacred. Pretty sure God didn't give us a gift so that we could vacuum it out of our cunts and toss it in the trash.

You've never in your life gotten a gift you didn't want?
God gave us periods too...All praise.
OOOooh, each egg is a potential life! We are murderers for not fertilizing it and allowing it to develop!
You're also calling death a punishment again.  

[NOCTVRNVS]

Efstathios

NOCTVRNVS

Sure, of course death can be used as a punishment -- does that mean it IS a punishment? confused Going to your room can be a punishment when you're a kid, but then again you go to your room to sleep too.

If it's not a punishment then stop saying that we shouldn't be punishing something that is innocent. Make up your mind.

NOCTVRNVS

You're not religious, that's fine, no need to get indignant about it. You did reference God in your last post so I'm sure you can see where my assumption is based. Fact remains, for people who believe in it God's Word according to the Bible dictates against abortion. The child being unappreciated is totally irrelevant to the case of abortion as the Bible sees it; abusing the child would be a sin on the heads of the parents, while the child has not necessarily done anything wrong. He deserves a chance regardless of his environment because, abused or not, every person has the capacity to follow the way of God, which is the reason for life in the first place. It is the sinful parents who will be truly punished while the child, granted it follows the right path, will find peace.

That's O.K. then. People who believe in God the Bible will not be forced to have abortions, so all of that is immaterial when it comes to secular law. Christians do not have the right to enforce their religious views on the rest of humanity, only on their own congregation. We're not arueing whether your christian girlfriend should get an abortion, only over whether they should be legal for Atheists, Agnostics, Buddhists, Deists, Gnostics, Hindus, Pagans, Taoists, Wiccans...

NOCTVRNVS

Under natural law the baby does not die, you're incorrect. Firstly, it does not benefit the human species to kill the child, and second, surgical procedures are not considered natural law to begin with.

I merely stated that in nature, if you don't like something that is alive and weaker than you, it will die. There are actually many animals that will sponateously abort or reabsorb the fetal material if conditions are unsuitable for birth. So even in nature, when the parent is in conditions unsuitable to bring a child into, the parent will not bring a child into that environment

NOCTVRNVS

As for cancer, chemotherapy I know little of, and care little for. Putting chemicals in your body may help numb your cancer but it can't be too good for you otherwise. It wouldn't much bother me if we just let nature take its course with these things, which I am saying with a few of my relatives dead from smoking-induced cancer. They got plenty of chemo but my grandmother still died at 60. But in either case, your comparison is ridiculous! Chemotherapy PREVENTS death. Abortion IS death; it does not prevent death even if it saves the mother's life, because it only saves her by killing someone else. Kind of like how the president's bodyguard doesn't prevent death, he just prevents the PRESIDENT's death by dying himself.

My arguement there was just that it was a medical procedure, unnatural, that is considered a good thing. If it saves the mother's life it does, in fact prevent a death even if it does (in your opinion) cause another. It is legal to deny someone something that results in their death in any case. Shimp vs. McFall, which I brought up ages ago.

NOCTVRNVS

I'd like to see you prove that children being aborted have no will. You can't, because all children that have been aborted are (surprise) dead! Pure speculation. And I wonder, if it's not our place to judge then why is it okay to judge who is to die in this situation? Which was my question in the first place. We are not to judge which innocent must die, when the decision will make itself anyway.

Will, personality, desires, etc all exist in the brain. While the fetus may have brain matter at the time it is aborted, it has no cognition. No thoughts, and thus no will. Your best arguement here would be from Roe vs. Wade, (From the losing side, true) That the laws against abortion are based on the fetus's potential will, y'know 6 years later it might be able to say "I'm glad I wasn't aborted, then I couldn't go to disneyworld!" or it might be severely developmentally delayed 25 yrs old continuely raped in care home because though the debilitating illness was detected in the womb, abortion was illegal. All the time the only thought it can conjure is a nonverbal feeling of "God, when will this end, what did I do to deserve this?"

NOCTVRNVS

On the same day, two children were born in Austria -- one was perfect and beautiful, the other was diagnosed with Down syndrome. At the time abortion was illegal, Thank God -- the normal child was named Adolf Hitler. Now, the other would have been aborted instead. Why is it not okay to judge women who kill their own children, while it's fine to judge infants before they are even born?

Whether or not abortion was legal doesn't change what Adolf became. On the other hand, if Adolf's mother didn't have the means to support him and abortion had been legal...
I think that aborting a child you cannot/will not care for is more responsible, even if it results in a bit of eugenics.
People judge potentialities all the time, but according to Bible, since you like bringing it in occasionally, the child should obey it's mother to the death, she owns it, essentially. Therefore she has the right to kill it. Same with modern law, it's in her body, therefore she has the right to kill it.

NOCTVRNVS

And besides, let's face it. If the child was two years old, as opposed to unborn, would you still think it was okay for the mother to decide which of them is going to die in a situation where it is definite? Such as holding her child up as protection from a gunshot. Or jumping off a burning building on top of her child to prevent her from dying.

If a child can survive outside it's mother's body that's a different story and already covered by law. See Planned Parenthood of (South Dakota?) Vs. Casey. Post viability abortions are a no go unless they threaten the life of the mother, even then if she says save the baby, they have to do it.

NOCTVRNVS

You obviously don't understand "taking scripture out of context". If you are capable of understanding the concept of a parable then there is no question as to what "nor shall children be put to death for their fathers" means. Never should a person's life be taken because of the acts of their father (or mother in this case), which is exactly what abortion is. If the child is not being put to death because of the actions of his mother or father, then WHY is the child being put to death? Don't even answer that because there is no answer, other than that abortion is killing a child because of the actions of his mother. As for the Psalm, yes, it is a song -- one about the gift of children who are sacred. Pretty sure God didn't give us a gift so that we could vacuum it out of our cunts and toss it in the trash.

You've never in your life gotten a gift you didn't want?
God gave us periods too...All praise.
OOOooh, each egg is a potential life! We are murderers for not fertilizing it and allowing it to develop!
You're also calling death a punishment again.

I don't appreciate your rhetoric. Gee, I'm considering death a means of punishment, really? That's because we're talking about ABORTION, if the discussion would be about dying of natural causes I wouldn't say that death was a punishment. I can't think of too many cases where we intentionally kill a human NOT as a punishment. Seriously, what is your point here, because I'm missing it.

You're trying to play the "oppressive Christian" card. Never did I say that Biblical laws should be applied to everything (although that would be a step in the right direction, now that you mention it), you somehow concluded that because I addressed what religion has to say in regards to abortion I am projecting my religion into the issue, which is not the case here, sorry. And furthermore, you obviously hadn't considered that laws are established by people projecting their own moral code into legislation. Without people "forcing" their religion and morals on society we would have no laws against rape in the first place. There is no valid reason morals, whether religious or not, should have no place in legislature. The only reason people don't like when one's morality is projected into legislature is because it contradicts with the IMMORALITY of society. You may not realize it but laws protecting abortion rights would not exist if the morality (or rather immorality) of some was not forced onto others. Like it or not, abortion is a moral issue, so don't complain when people bring morals into the discussion. Whether those morals are founded in religion or not is totally irrelevant.

In nature, when the parent is not in the proper condition to raise a child, it doesn't have one, I agree -- nor should it. That is why, when it is not the right time to become pregnant, animals don't have sex. Spiders don't go to a spider abortionist when they get accidentally pregnant. Obvious to some, perhaps not to others, but most living creatures produce children by having sex. Surprisingly enough, this is an adequate solution for humans who don't desire a child at any one time!

I asked you to prove that aborted children don't have cognition, simply restating your opinion that they don't is not proving it. Children have a nervous system AND an active brain after 3 weeks from conception -- all that is required to feel and think. And once again, cognition does not dictate one's right to live! The argument is invalid!

You missed the point of my Adolf bit. Adolf would not have been aborted even if laws allowed it; not you or anyone else can rightfully choose to kill someone because of a presumption. And by the way, there is a LOT of presumption in your argument. The child MIGHT be abused in his childhood. The child MIGHT be mentally retarded when it's born. The child MIGHT kill its mother by childbirth. But guess what? We can't just assume that something is going to happen and start KILLING things to make sure it doesn't. That's not how it works. I mean we don't go around killing adult people who are deformed or retarded, but we kill infants who MIGHT BE deformed and retarded? There is more logic the former case to be honest.

I'll also bring into play an interesting fact: as the number of legal abortions has risen, the number of recorded child-abuse cases has ALSO risen. This directly contradicts the idea that unwanted children tend to experience parental abuse. Also keep in mind that abortion IS just another form of abuse no matter which way you look at it -- you are knowingly killing an innocent child and that is abuse. And finally, abuse does in no way warrant killing the abused child ANYWAY; it would make more sense to just put children out of their misery who are currently BEING abused by their parents. The "unwanted child might be abused" case is invalid.

And as for your completely unfounded and rather blasphemous claim regarding the Bible, nowhere does it claim that a child is OWNED by its mother, or that that its mother can freely kill it when she sees fit. With a statement like that I have got to assume you have relatively NO understanding of the text of the Bible. No human is EVER owned, except by God Himself.

And you seem to think law expresses we are allowed to kill something becasue it is inside our body? That's interesting, I wonder what would make you think something so asinine in concept. Not only is it not true, but you also seem to be assuming that we have the right to do anything we want with our own body. We absolutely do not. We can't legally kill or mutilate our own body. In fact there are plenty of things we don't have the right to do with our body. Let alone the fact that an unborn child is not a PART of your body but an entirely separate entity that happens to be inside your body rather than outside it.

Yes, a child able to survive outside its mother's body is protected by laws, but that is not even a point. After all not too long ago, children were protected by laws inside OR outside their mother's body, but for some reason people felt they needed to change that. You can't argue using laws to defend your position when your same argument only just relied on arguing AGAINST laws years earlier.

Post-viability abortions... hmm. So you're saying in other words, in some cases the mother is FORCED to have an abortion even against her will? That's interesting, I thought we couldn't force people to do anything against their will. That's quite a paradox.

And I'm going to assume your last bit was a joke. I hope you honestly aren't comparing the God-sent GIFT of childbirth to the curse of menstruation given through SIN. Also please note that not even God considers it a human life until fertilization of the egg. Nice try though.  

[bluecherry]

NOCTVRNVS

bluecherry

Even if you count a fetus as a person, I would still not concede to abortion being murder at all as I'd say they do not yet count as a real whole living person (not as in "oh look! a quadriplegic! They don't count as a whole person so we can kill them!" - "Whole" as in too developmentally incomplete to survive without using somebody else's body constantly) and so can not be killed and do not yet have rights any way. And on top of that, even if you did count the fetus as being a live person with rights, they still violated somebody else's bodily integrity first and thus the resulting death of the fetus by removing it from the other person's body would not count as an actual "murder" because killing in self defense doesn't count for murder.

mur·der

mur·der [múrdər]
n (plural mur·ders)
1. crime of killing somebody: the crime of killing another person deliberately and not in self-defense or with any other extenuating circumstance recognized by law

Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

And see here you are reverting back to a circular argument (albeit an even tighter circle this time as I just explained this). The child is NOT invading its mother's bodily integrity first. Even a "developed" fetus is consuming just 300 calories per 24 hours, so a child at the time it is aborted is presumably living on under 100 calories per day. Losing 100 calories per day is NOT interfering with bodily integrity, not even a child's bodily integrity is damaged with a loss of 100 calories per day. In fact I think a lot of Americans could manage to give up many times as much calories every day -- hell, technically helping someone lose calories could be CONTRIBUTING to their bodily integrity. No, the child is not posing a lethal risk to its mother at all in this early stage -- while the abortionist is reaching inside the womb and vacuuming out the fetus (usually a much harsher method), which I would maintain IS damaging a person's bodily integrity and, in fact, killing them (in a very brutal and inhumane manner, mind you -- generally the fetus is ripped limb-from-limb, quite literally, before it dies).

So now "developmentally incomplete" constitutes as a non-person? Okay, so then you advocate the killing of underdeveloped infants, retards with underdeveloped brains, and cripples with undeveloped limbs as well. Maybe even midgets, if you consider. And you should probably be out fighting against welfare, immigration, and health-care, because those are institutions that we are forced into paying for by the government to help people develop and live. The social and moral equivalent of abortion would be to accept the boats of immigrants into American ports and then promptly send them all back systematically. Since we are ALL forced to pay for them to come to our country and live on welfare, this is a violation of our rights just like unwanted births. Actually you would have a much better argument there to be honest, no-one's dying in this case.

Yes, the fetus IS invading another's bodily integrity first even if unintentionally (as it is incapable of intent at that point.) That at the point of abortion being legal the fetus consumes so few calories and has very little physical effect on the pregnant person's body does not change the violation of bodily integrity. A violation does not need to be severely physically damaging to still be badly in violation (not to mention, abortion means a preventive measure -- getting it out early before it can cause more and more physical changes that may be undesirable). A violation can be mentally and emotionally damaging too. As for example, suppose a woman was walking in a "bad neighborhood" late at night, knowing there was a bit of a risk involved, but she did it any way because she had a friend who was already stranded in the area and she could not get a car to the place. If that woman is held at knife point and raped, she may sustain little physical damage at all, but still suffer massive trauma mentally. Do you think that because she was not badly hurt physically the woman should have no right to even try to stop such a thing occurring to her? Bodily integrity is about more then physical safety, it's a mental issue too, rooted in the concept of freedom of choice. (I'd give an exact definition of "bodily integrity", but so far I have not found one.)

And now your taking what I said the wrong way, using a straw man fallacy even I'd say. I already said in parentheses that I was not referring to the merely disabled or those who would require some form of mechanical assistance. I limited my argument strictly to those who can not live without relying off another's body. (Again, organ donation recipients are an example of what does not count. You can not demand somebody to give you an organ of theirs, but if they give it willingly, once it is removed from them and put into you it is now part of your body, not theirs, and thus it is not relying off surviving on another person's body.) All those people you mentioned are developed enough to survive without living off another person's body. (Conjoined twins are something that might come up, so I'll say now that if the two COULD be separated without both dieing and the one that could survive the separation wanted it, I don't think the one that couldn't survive has the right to demand they not be separated.) And those other things you mentioned are totally moot to this debate on abortion, so it's not worth following further in this topic, but I will say that in that aspect you ARE correct -- I don't think the government should be forcing people to pay for welfare, "universal health care" , or any of those kinds of things. I could go on, but it would be a bit too long of an explanation of the justification behind this to post in this topic.

 

[NOCTVRNVS]

bluecherry

NOCTVRNVS

bluecherry

Even if you count a fetus as a person, I would still not concede to abortion being murder at all as I'd say they do not yet count as a real whole living person (not as in "oh look! a quadriplegic! They don't count as a whole person so we can kill them!" - "Whole" as in too developmentally incomplete to survive without using somebody else's body constantly) and so can not be killed and do not yet have rights any way. And on top of that, even if you did count the fetus as being a live person with rights, they still violated somebody else's bodily integrity first and thus the resulting death of the fetus by removing it from the other person's body would not count as an actual "murder" because killing in self defense doesn't count for murder.

mur·der

mur·der [múrdər]
n (plural mur·ders)
1. crime of killing somebody: the crime of killing another person deliberately and not in self-defense or with any other extenuating circumstance recognized by law

Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

And see here you are reverting back to a circular argument (albeit an even tighter circle this time as I just explained this). The child is NOT invading its mother's bodily integrity first. Even a "developed" fetus is consuming just 300 calories per 24 hours, so a child at the time it is aborted is presumably living on under 100 calories per day. Losing 100 calories per day is NOT interfering with bodily integrity, not even a child's bodily integrity is damaged with a loss of 100 calories per day. In fact I think a lot of Americans could manage to give up many times as much calories every day -- hell, technically helping someone lose calories could be CONTRIBUTING to their bodily integrity. No, the child is not posing a lethal risk to its mother at all in this early stage -- while the abortionist is reaching inside the womb and vacuuming out the fetus (usually a much harsher method), which I would maintain IS damaging a person's bodily integrity and, in fact, killing them (in a very brutal and inhumane manner, mind you -- generally the fetus is ripped limb-from-limb, quite literally, before it dies).

So now "developmentally incomplete" constitutes as a non-person? Okay, so then you advocate the killing of underdeveloped infants, retards with underdeveloped brains, and cripples with undeveloped limbs as well. Maybe even midgets, if you consider. And you should probably be out fighting against welfare, immigration, and health-care, because those are institutions that we are forced into paying for by the government to help people develop and live. The social and moral equivalent of abortion would be to accept the boats of immigrants into American ports and then promptly send them all back systematically. Since we are ALL forced to pay for them to come to our country and live on welfare, this is a violation of our rights just like unwanted births. Actually you would have a much better argument there to be honest, no-one's dying in this case.

Yes, the fetus IS invading another's bodily integrity first even if unintentionally (as it is incapable of intent at that point.) That at the point of abortion being legal the fetus consumes so few calories and has very little physical effect on the pregnant person's body does not change the violation of bodily integrity. A violation does not need to be severely physically damaging to still be badly in violation (not to mention, abortion means a preventive measure -- getting it out early before it can cause more and more physical changes that may be undesirable). A violation can be mentally and emotionally damaging too. As for example, suppose a woman was walking in a "bad neighborhood" late at night, knowing there was a bit of a risk involved, but she did it any way because she had a friend who was already stranded in the area and she could not get a car to the place. If that woman is held at knife point and raped, she may sustain little physical damage at all, but still suffer massive trauma mentally. Do you think that because she was not badly hurt physically the woman should have no right to even try to stop such a thing occurring to her? Bodily integrity is about more then physical safety, it's a mental issue too, rooted in the concept of freedom of choice. (I'd give an exact definition of "bodily integrity", but so far I have not found one.)

And now your taking what I said the wrong way, using a straw man fallacy even I'd say. I already said in parentheses that I was not referring to the merely disabled or those who would require some form of mechanical assistance. I limited my argument strictly to those who can not live without relying off another's body. (Again, organ donation recipients are an example of what does not count. You can not demand somebody to give you an organ of theirs, but if they give it willingly, once it is removed from them and put into you it is now part of your body, not theirs, and thus it is not relying off surviving on another person's body.) All those people you mentioned are developed enough to survive without living off another person's body. (Conjoined twins are something that might come up, so I'll say now that if the two COULD be separated without both dieing and the one that could survive the separation wanted it, I don't think the one that couldn't survive has the right to demand they not be separated.) And those other things you mentioned are totally moot to this debate on abortion, so it's not worth following further in this topic, but I will say that in that aspect you ARE correct -- I don't think the government should be forcing people to pay for welfare, "universal health care" , or any of those kinds of things. I could go on, but it would be a bit too long of an explanation of the justification behind this to post in this topic.

Please explain how a fetus 3 weeks old is putting his mother's bodily integrity at lethal risk.

Note that you can't KILL someone as a preventative measure. Preventative measures can be taken when the decision is yours to make and doesn't effect someone else's well-being. You also used the word "undesirable" to describe the effects of pregnancy. We don't have the right to kill people who are undesirable to us.

I agree, violations of human rights can and ARE emotionally and physically damaging. Abortion is a prime example, and statistics will show that many abortionist women undergo trauma and even become suicidal, post-abortion.

Right, in your example, the woman was raped because she went to an area she KNEW was bad yet beyond all common sense she went there anyway and risked her well-being. Since she was raped after all, there is no way she can be UN-raped, so where exactly does abortion fit in this example? You mentioned preventative measures; a preventative measure would have been to NOT GO there in the first place. And regarding psychological and physical damage, both of these are very present as the post-effects of almost all abortions. In fact some women lose their fertility, the main purpose of their sexuality, from abortion-related complications. Seeing what happens to aborted babies after knowing you DID such things to your own child can generally have very negative psychological effects, and many abortionist women have reported feeling suicidal on the day that their child was scheduled to have been born. So please tell me again about pregnancy-related psychological trauma.

Anyway, back to your back-alley rape example, no, the women did not have the right to protect herself by killing the rapist, and she ESPECIALLY doesn't have the right to kill any potential rapists she comes across as a measure to PREVENT rape. And again, no, YOUR freedom of choice does not encompass the lives of other people. And since you so zealously claim that children don't have the biological means to MAKE choices I suppose that means the fault can only be that of the mother in this aspect.

Okay, so you're only advocating the death of those who rely on another's body for survival. Including born infants I suppose as they rely on their mother's body for survival. And, just for fun -- we don't have the right to kill certain animals that pose a risk to us. For example, endangered species. A few months ago (true story) a man in Germany was sent to jail for killing an endangered hawk when it attacked him and his dog. So no, just because something is using our body in a way that makes us uncomfortable or puts us in danger, we don't necessarily have the right to kill it as an appropriate solution. And hey, in this guy's case he was attacked completely at random; but pregnancy is not random or spontaneous, it happens because we have sex. And just in case you were even going to try, it is irrelevant that the hawk was endangered and infants are not. It is STILL proof that there are exceptions to the rights to protect our body.

Welfare recipients indirectly rely on our bodies to live, as our money goes to them, which leaves less money for us to do what we desire with our bodies.

I mean you could argue that the mother doesn't have the right to kill her infant after birth but that she DOES have the right to stop feeding it; which is untrue because that would be murder by starvation. You could also argue that a mother has the option of giving her child away, which is true, however you can not just instantly give your child to adoption agencies the minute you are bored with feeding it, you're still liable to sustain the child until it is no longer legally under your care.

Which brings up another interesting point. Every child has the right to guardianship, so a child without guardianship is having his rights violated. This is not speculation but fact. So during an abortion, who is the child's guardian? If it's the mother then she could technically be charged with a number of things including parental neglect, and the doctor could be charged with kidnapping -- EVEN IF the actual abortion is legal. It doesn't really matter if the mother gives him express permission to handle her child, kidnapping charges have gone through under those circumstances before. Besides, what about cases where the woman's unconscious during the abortion? The abortionist doctor does not have permission to handle the child at that moment and he is not technically in the presence of the mother. And parental neglect would really be almost unavoidable in the mother's case, I mean considering the actions that define the charge. Even if you're not killing your own child you are still LETTING it die. That's the bottom line of parental neglect.  

[bluecherry]

That a three week old fetus may not directly be lethal to a pregnant person does not matter. Bodily integrity, as I said, is not merely about physical harm. You can stop right now trying to tell me "but you're killing something that wasn't about to kill you!" because it's not the root of the issue. The center of the issue is that you have the right to take as extreme of measures as necessary to protect your bodily integrity against any violation or any end any in-progress violation as soon as you want, no matter how big or small the violation or time it would take for the violation to end of it's own accord, no matter how it started as long as you did not violate somebody else's rights first. And note I said "as necessary." If you COULD end the pregnancy with essentially the exact same procedure done but with the fetus either having one thing injected which would kill it/prevent it from ever really living or another thing injected which would incapacitate it long enough to remove it and then have it put in an artificial womb system to finish developing and then be put into an orphanage and the identity of the parents would never have to be divulged to the child, then I don't think the lethal injection into the fetus would be seen any more as really a very appropriate course, since it's not necessary to get the exact same results for yourself. Since we do not have such things right now though, fetal death is an acceptable consequence of protection of bodily integrity.

Because some women feel bad after having abortions is not reason to outlaw it. Different people feel bad about different things for different reasons. Imagine if everything anybody ever felt bad about was illegal. I largely think though that those women who felt bad after having abortions did so though because 1) other people, such as yourself, tell them they SHOULD feel bad and are horrible people, thus all the pressure gets to them or 2) abortion is legal because as was pointed out earlier, it may do no wrong secularly, but some people have religions that they believe which say it's wrong any way, so they feel guilty afterwards due to doing things that are wrong according to their religion. I think in the first case they should just remember the reasons they had that were good enough for the in the first place to get the abortion so they know they did it with just cause and ignore all the other people who do not have to live their lives, have no right to control it, and do not know the whole story even and go on with their lives confident in doing what was right for them. As for the second case, if they can't do what I advised for the first case and know that they had good enough reasons to go against the belief, then I don't see why they could have gotten themselves all the way to making the appointment, going to the doctor, and getting the abortion done before they started to see the belief they held as something they could not get passed. That said, I really don't believe I've ever heard that most people who get abortions regret it and even if that was the case it's still not reason enough to tell all people they can not get it.

Yes, in my example the woman went into an area she knew was bad -- but NOT beyond all common sense. I mentioned already she was going to pick up a stranded friend. Yes, she can not be "un-raped", but nether can abortion make you "un-pregnant." Abortion simply ENDS pregnancy, it doesn't go back in time and prevent it from ever happening, just like the woman could only have tried to defend herself and STOP the rape once it started. Think of it like she could try to defend herself against the rape starting, but it wouldn't necessarily succeed, just as contraception can fail, and after that happens you can then still try to stop the rape once it's started, just like abortion is stopping a pregnancy once it's started. The woman DID have a cause to go to that bad neighborhood like I said, so there's no weight to your claim of "there was no reason to go, she shouldn't have gone." Really, telling her to leave her friend stuck lost in that bad neighborhood is as good as arguing for all women to not have vaginal sex with men until they want to and can support having a child or hit menopause (since it's really difficult to even get a doctor to sterilize a fertile woman, especially if she has not hit a certain age and has a certain number of children already, no matter what she tells doctors.) As for psychological damage, I addressed that already, and or physical, they gave the doctors consent to that where the fetus, in the case of when abortion s desired, did not have consent. Thus damage the doctor causes is fine as long as it's not unnecessarily large for the procedure being performed just like in any medical matter. And yes, some women may loose their fertility from abortions but I know it's far less then the number that would have this happen from desperate illegal abortions, after all, all medical treatments and even all things in life carry some risks we have to admit and accept. However, that's a bit of a naturalistic fallacy you've said calling reproduction the main "purpose" of sexuality. Not all women want to ever have children at all and most sex does not actually result in an offspring, I would not say it is always the main purpose of a person's sexuality - Sex has plenty of social aspects and purposes and plenty of people like to do it just for it's own sake. In fact, MOST sex does not result in an offspring. Even if you DO want to look at it "naturally" too, look how many women can and do keep having sex with men after menopause when for completely natural reasons, they can not possibly reproduce. If sex was only "for" reproduction then there would be neither the desire nor the ability to have sex that could not or would not result in an offspring being produced.

Being forced to maintain a pregnancy you do not wish to have most SURELY could and would cause psychological trauma for many as it's essentially being told you are not aloud to exercise free will and you have to live with something as proof of it inside you for nine months and then go through the agonizing birth process you did not want to go through or have the major surgery of a c-section, all while the ability to have relatively safely ended this LONG ago existed. I'd say that has a HUGE potential for psychological damage. Personally, if it were ever to happen to me, I'd never be able to trust any of the society that would have this done to me ever again until and unless the policy was changed in my lifetime.

Excuse me? You do NOT believe the women has the right to kill a person who is raping her or she knows is about to rape her if it is necessary to end or prevent the rape? If you truly believe this, then we may as well stop here. This is the real root of our disagreement we've finally come to and unless this an be gotten around we never CAN or WILL come to an agreement on the issue. I DO believe my freedom of choice encompass other people, but ONLY when they have violated my rights first, such as would be the case when a fetus is in a person who does not wish to be pregnant. And yes, fetuses do not have the ability to make choices, but I never said this was about "fault" -- I'm not looking to place "blame" on or "punish" anybody in this case. Even were somebody to get pregnant due to simple recklessness of having sex with a guy and a girl and no attempt at contraceptives at all, stupidity is not illegal. If it was we'd have not the ability to make enough jails to fit all the criminals. Just like somebody stupid enough to ride a bike without a helmet who then gets thrown from the bike will not be denied medical attention because it was their own fault both that they were riding a bike in the first place and then had no helmet even on top of that, I don't think we should deny an abortion to anybody who wants one no matter how they got pregnant.

No, I'm only advocating the death of those who rely on another's body against that person's will to start with. Born infants do not rely on their mother's body. They can be formula fed or breast fed by somebody else, they are now separate entities, the mother now does not have the right to kill the baby because it is not violating her bodily integrity first and second at this point even if you DID consider it Dependant upon the mother's body it would not be necessary at all for the baby to die to end the violation -- give it to an orphanage and they'll willingly take it and (hopefully in not too long) then the baby can go to somebody who WILL want to take care of it, so even if it does rely on their bodies to support the child's life they will give the baby consent and thus it will be no violation of their bodily integrity. Also, I think that not being aloud to defend yourself and your stuff (the guy's dog I'm referring to) against an animal, no matter what the animal is or if it's "endangered", is also wrong. I do agree that the hawk was endangered and infants are not is totally moot to the issue of violation of rights. (And that's Germany any way. I believe this discussion is primarily about U.S. law. Though, that's not to say I even think the law here is in any way infallible. After all, laws are made by people who are elected directly or indirectly through popular vote and so since neither voters nor the elected officials they vote are guaranteed to be right in their views, why should the laws necessarily always be right? After all, that's why we get laws changed in the first place.)

As for welfare, like I said - I think it's a bad policy too to be forcing upon people. It should not be mandated by law. Have a voluntary fund that people can contribute to if they want for the purpose served by welfare? Sure, let people do t if they want to, but don't MAKE them pay it. And welfare in fact does not even necessarily have to be a violation of the body indirectly, it can be a violation of the mind indirectly. Welfare is taking somebody's money that is rightfully theirs and then making them (that it's a mandatory and not voluntary policy means they know full well it is not what people really want done with their money if they had the choice) give it to people who do not have any rightful claim to it. Since people can make money by simply selling their ideas, it means it is a violation of rights, but not necessarily of bodily integrity specifically.

I already mentioned earlier about the conditions of a mom and a born child. If she doesn't want it she doesn't have to kill it/let it die, just give it away, so that's why after the child is born it would be infanticide and wrong, since death of the child is in no way necessary at all. As for the time it would take in between, hey, abortions need to be scheduled ahead of time any way. And not to mention, why DIDN'T the mom in this case just get an abortion any way of schedule the baby to be given up for adoption at birth? And if nothing else and you really want rid of that baby immediately, I do believe hospitals will take any baby left with them at any time as they don't want to hear about the baby ending up left to die instead. Other public places like post offices I think will likely do something similar and if even that is no good I'm willing to be if you call child services and tell them they need to take the child from you, they'll do it if they think they have to or the child will come to harm. Also, what about the dad again though as an aside? How come the mom would be held responsible for the child but the dad would not? If the mom willfully opted to take full custody of the child, ok, he doesn't owe anything, but if that was the case then why did the mom who wanted the kid that much now not want it so much she doesn't care at all what happens to it?

How does every child have the right to guardianship? That's one I've never heard before. Please, do explain this idea. And any way, what about orphanages? Do they count as "guardianships" or would they count as massive rights violations, eh? And as for abortion, again, the fetus has violated the pregnant person's bodily integrity first. Thus as the first one to violate somebody else's rights, they, in this case the fetus, are now fine to have their own rights violated as much as is necessary to end the violation that they (still talking about the fetus just to be clear) started. So even if there is whatever this "right to guardianship" you mention, it along with their right to life (as long as we're going with the argument that the fetus at this point counts as a living person with rights) are aloud to be disregarded for the sake of ending the violation of the pregnant person's bodily integrity. Oh, and curiosity again, as to this supposed "guardianship right" - who counts as a child? people under 18 or does it mean all people are a "child" of somebody and so must always have a guardian? If it's the second, then what do you say about people who's parents have died? And even if you do say adoption agencies themselves count as guardianships, then what about the interval between when the biological parents decide they do not wish to be parents of the child and when it actually gets to and under the control of the adoption agency? When before has a parent/parents with full custody ever given permission to somebody else to take their child and it was considered kidnapping still? As for being unconscious during abortion, if the permission ahead of time was not good enough to count as permission while they were unconscious, then no medical procedure that requires you to be unconscious at the time could ever be legal because they would not have permission at the time. Imagine how impossible it would be to ever get so many surgeries done. No doctor would ever be willing to do any surgery that required an unconscious patient in a country that took that legal stance because it would be sure to get them sent to prison eventually. In fact, if when the pregnant person is unconscious they are not considered "present" then it would be child neglect/abandonment -- in that case, any time the person SLEPT it would be a crime.

 

[Efstathios]

I don't appreciate your rhetoric. Gee, I'm considering death a means of punishment, really? That's because we're talking about ABORTION, if the discussion would be about dying of natural causes I wouldn't say that death was a punishment. I can't think of too many cases where we intentionally kill a human NOT as a punishment. Seriously, what is your point here, because I'm missing it.
War for one, all they did was be born in the wrong country. The baby was concieved at the wrong time. Neither actually did anything wrong, but both die for it.

You're trying to play the "oppressive Christian" card. Never did I say that Biblical laws should be applied to everything (although that would be a step in the right direction, now that you mention it), you somehow concluded that because I addressed what religion has to say in regards to abortion I am projecting my religion into the issue, which is not the case here, sorry. And furthermore, you obviously hadn't considered that laws are established by people projecting their own moral code into legislation. Without people "forcing" their religion and morals on society we would have no laws against rape in the first place. There is no valid reason morals, whether religious or not, should have no place in legislature. The only reason people don't like when one's morality is projected into legislature is because it contradicts with the IMMORALITY of society. You may not realize it but laws protecting abortion rights would not exist if the morality (or rather immorality) of some was not forced onto others. Like it or not, abortion is a moral issue, so don't complain when people bring morals into the discussion. Whether those morals are founded in religion or not is totally irrelevant.
Basic human morality is supposed to be encoded into law, stuff that varies by religion doesn't count. Sorry for thinking freedom of choice is moral confused
Also, something being wrong doesn't stop it from being protected by law. I think we both can think of plenty non-abortion examples of that.

In nature, when the parent is not in the proper condition to raise a child, it doesn't have one, I agree -- nor should it. That is why, when it is not the right time to become pregnant, animals don't have sex. Spiders don't go to a spider abortionist when they get accidentally pregnant. Obvious to some, perhaps not to others, but most living creatures produce children by having sex. Surprisingly enough, this is an adequate solution for humans who don't desire a child at any one time!
Animals always have sex. If the fetus is reabsorbed that means they did have sex and there was a fetus. Spontaneous abortion and reabsorbtion of fetal matter =/= no sex. Animals practice homosexuality and masturbate, it isn't only about reproduction for all animals.

I asked you to prove that aborted children don't have cognition, simply restating your opinion that they don't is not proving it. Children have a nervous system AND an active brain after 3 weeks from conception -- all that is required to feel and think. And once again, cognition does not dictate one's right to live! The argument is invalid!
Doctors, who know more about this than you or I, say that it doesn't. I would show you CAT scans proving it, but I do not have access to such. I'll be a radiologist Tech in two year years, maybe then. Cognition does dictate right to live. If something is brain-dead it is not alive, see Terry Shievo(sp?)

You missed the point of my Adolf bit. Adolf would not have been aborted even if laws allowed it; not you or anyone else can rightfully choose to kill someone because of a presumption. And by the way, there is a LOT of presumption in your argument. The child MIGHT be abused in his childhood. The child MIGHT be mentally retarded when it's born. The child MIGHT kill its mother by childbirth. But guess what? We can't just assume that something is going to happen and start KILLING things to make sure it doesn't. That's not how it works. I mean we don't go around killing adult people who are deformed or retarded, but we kill infants who MIGHT BE deformed and retarded? There is more logic the former case to be honest.
We can; however, see quite clearly that the world is over-populated and that it is people born into bad situations that tend to begin having sex at the youngest ages (around 12 usually) and produce the most children. Call it eugenics. I'm all for it. The world's population needs to be reduced, this is one way to go about it without killing anyone's mom or best friend.

I'll also bring into play an interesting fact: as the number of legal abortions has risen, the number of recorded child-abuse cases has ALSO risen. This directly contradicts the idea that unwanted children tend to experience parental abuse. Also keep in mind that abortion IS just another form of abuse no matter which way you look at it -- you are knowingly killing an innocent child and that is abuse. And finally, abuse does in no way warrant killing the abused child ANYWAY; it would make more sense to just put children out of their misery who are currently BEING abused by their parents. The "unwanted child might be abused" case is invalid.
That's just because there's more people, has it merely risen or has it risen proportionatey?

And as for your completely unfounded and rather blasphemous claim regarding the Bible, nowhere does it claim that a child is OWNED by its mother, or that that its mother can freely kill it when she sees fit. With a statement like that I have got to assume you have relatively NO understanding of the text of the Bible. No human is EVER owned, except by God Himself.Ok fine, it never says the mother owns the kids. It says the father owns them and their mother, if you contradict that I will be forced to throw the bible at you through the computer screen smile

And you seem to think law expresses we are allowed to kill something becasue it is inside our body? That's interesting, I wonder what would make you think something so asinine in concept. Not only is it not true, but you also seem to be assuming that we have the right to do anything we want with our own body. We absolutely do not. We can't legally kill or mutilate our own body. In fact there are plenty of things we don't have the right to do with our body. Let alone the fact that an unborn child is not a PART of your body but an entirely separate entity that happens to be inside your body rather than outside it.
We can legally mutilate our bodies, actually. Ever seen someone with a slit tongue? You can do anything with your body as long as it doesn't get in someone else's way. In the case of an infant it got in the way of it's mother's right to bodily integrity, right to pursuit of happiness ,etc, before she, and necessitating that she, return the favor.

Yes, a child able to survive outside its mother's body is protected by laws, but that is not even a point. After all not too long ago, children were protected by laws inside OR outside their mother's body, but for some reason people felt they needed to change that. You can't argue using laws to defend your position when your same argument only just relied on arguing AGAINST laws years earlier.
There's a reason the constitution is a living document. Times change, technology changes. The original laws were not written to protect the childern, but to protect the mother because medicine at that time made abortions extremely unsafe for the mother.

Post-viability abortions... hmm. So you're saying in other words, in some cases the mother is FORCED to have an abortion even against her will? That's interesting, I thought we couldn't force people to do anything against their will. That's quite a paradox.
A mother is never forced to have an abortion. Where did you think I said that?

And I'm going to assume your last bit was a joke. I hope you honestly aren't comparing the God-sent GIFT of childbirth to the curse of menstruation given through SIN. Also please note that not even God considers it a human life until fertilization of the egg. Nice try though.
Actually... Remember Onan? The whole "wasting his seed thing"? He actually tried not to get someone pregnant and the lord smote him for it. So actually that arguement, though it was a joke, is biblically valid.
(BTW childbirth was a curse too, Genesis Chapter 3 Verse 16)  

[NOCTVRNVS]

bluecherry

That a three week old fetus may not directly be lethal to a pregnant person does not matter. Bodily integrity, as I said, is not merely about physical harm. You can stop right now trying to tell me "but you're killing something that wasn't about to kill you!" because it's not the root of the issue. The center of the issue is that you have the right to take as extreme of measures as necessary to protect your bodily integrity against any violation or any end any in-progress violation as soon as you want, no matter how big or small the violation or time it would take for the violation to end of it's own accord, no matter how it started as long as you did not violate somebody else's rights first. And note I said "as necessary." If you COULD end the pregnancy with essentially the exact same procedure done but with the fetus either having one thing injected which would kill it/prevent it from ever really living or another thing injected which would incapacitate it long enough to remove it and then have it put in an artificial womb system to finish developing and then be put into an orphanage and the identity of the parents would never have to be divulged to the child, then I don't think the lethal injection into the fetus would be seen any more as really a very appropriate course, since it's not necessary to get the exact same results for yourself. Since we do not have such things right now though, fetal death is an acceptable consequence of protection of bodily integrity.

Because some women feel bad after having abortions is not reason to outlaw it. Different people feel bad about different things for different reasons. Imagine if everything anybody ever felt bad about was illegal. I largely think though that those women who felt bad after having abortions did so though because 1) other people, such as yourself, tell them they SHOULD feel bad and are horrible people, thus all the pressure gets to them or 2) abortion is legal because as was pointed out earlier, it may do no wrong secularly, but some people have religions that they believe which say it's wrong any way, so they feel guilty afterwards due to doing things that are wrong according to their religion. I think in the first case they should just remember the reasons they had that were good enough for the in the first place to get the abortion so they know they did it with just cause and ignore all the other people who do not have to live their lives, have no right to control it, and do not know the whole story even and go on with their lives confident in doing what was right for them. As for the second case, if they can't do what I advised for the first case and know that they had good enough reasons to go against the belief, then I don't see why they could have gotten themselves all the way to making the appointment, going to the doctor, and getting the abortion done before they started to see the belief they held as something they could not get passed. That said, I really don't believe I've ever heard that most people who get abortions regret it and even if that was the case it's still not reason enough to tell all people they can not get it.

Yes, in my example the woman went into an area she knew was bad -- but NOT beyond all common sense. I mentioned already she was going to pick up a stranded friend. Yes, she can not be "un-raped", but nether can abortion make you "un-pregnant." Abortion simply ENDS pregnancy, it doesn't go back in time and prevent it from ever happening, just like the woman could only have tried to defend herself and STOP the rape once it started. Think of it like she could try to defend herself against the rape starting, but it wouldn't necessarily succeed, just as contraception can fail, and after that happens you can then still try to stop the rape once it's started, just like abortion is stopping a pregnancy once it's started. The woman DID have a cause to go to that bad neighborhood like I said, so there's no weight to your claim of "there was no reason to go, she shouldn't have gone." Really, telling her to leave her friend stuck lost in that bad neighborhood is as good as arguing for all women to not have vaginal sex with men until they want to and can support having a child or hit menopause (since it's really difficult to even get a doctor to sterilize a fertile woman, especially if she has not hit a certain age and has a certain number of children already, no matter what she tells doctors.) As for psychological damage, I addressed that already, and or physical, they gave the doctors consent to that where the fetus, in the case of when abortion s desired, did not have consent. Thus damage the doctor causes is fine as long as it's not unnecessarily large for the procedure being performed just like in any medical matter. And yes, some women may loose their fertility from abortions but I know it's far less then the number that would have this happen from desperate illegal abortions, after all, all medical treatments and even all things in life carry some risks we have to admit and accept. However, that's a bit of a naturalistic fallacy you've said calling reproduction the main "purpose" of sexuality. Not all women want to ever have children at all and most sex does not actually result in an offspring, I would not say it is always the main purpose of a person's sexuality - Sex has plenty of social aspects and purposes and plenty of people like to do it just for it's own sake. In fact, MOST sex does not result in an offspring. Even if you DO want to look at it "naturally" too, look how many women can and do keep having sex with men after menopause when for completely natural reasons, they can not possibly reproduce. If sex was only "for" reproduction then there would be neither the desire nor the ability to have sex that could not or would not result in an offspring being produced.

Being forced to maintain a pregnancy you do not wish to have most SURELY could and would cause psychological trauma for many as it's essentially being told you are not aloud to exercise free will and you have to live with something as proof of it inside you for nine months and then go through the agonizing birth process you did not want to go through or have the major surgery of a c-section, all while the ability to have relatively safely ended this LONG ago existed. I'd say that has a HUGE potential for psychological damage. Personally, if it were ever to happen to me, I'd never be able to trust any of the society that would have this done to me ever again until and unless the policy was changed in my lifetime.

Excuse me? You do NOT believe the women has the right to kill a person who is raping her or she knows is about to rape her if it is necessary to end or prevent the rape? If you truly believe this, then we may as well stop here. This is the real root of our disagreement we've finally come to and unless this an be gotten around we never CAN or WILL come to an agreement on the issue. I DO believe my freedom of choice encompass other people, but ONLY when they have violated my rights first, such as would be the case when a fetus is in a person who does not wish to be pregnant. And yes, fetuses do not have the ability to make choices, but I never said this was about "fault" -- I'm not looking to place "blame" on or "punish" anybody in this case. Even were somebody to get pregnant due to simple recklessness of having sex with a guy and a girl and no attempt at contraceptives at all, stupidity is not illegal. If it was we'd have not the ability to make enough jails to fit all the criminals. Just like somebody stupid enough to ride a bike without a helmet who then gets thrown from the bike will not be denied medical attention because it was their own fault both that they were riding a bike in the first place and then had no helmet even on top of that, I don't think we should deny an abortion to anybody who wants one no matter how they got pregnant.

No, I'm only advocating the death of those who rely on another's body against that person's will to start with. Born infants do not rely on their mother's body. They can be formula fed or breast fed by somebody else, they are now separate entities, the mother now does not have the right to kill the baby because it is not violating her bodily integrity first and second at this point even if you DID consider it Dependant upon the mother's body it would not be necessary at all for the baby to die to end the violation -- give it to an orphanage and they'll willingly take it and (hopefully in not too long) then the baby can go to somebody who WILL want to take care of it, so even if it does rely on their bodies to support the child's life they will give the baby consent and thus it will be no violation of their bodily integrity. Also, I think that not being aloud to defend yourself and your stuff (the guy's dog I'm referring to) against an animal, no matter what the animal is or if it's "endangered", is also wrong. I do agree that the hawk was endangered and infants are not is totally moot to the issue of violation of rights. (And that's Germany any way. I believe this discussion is primarily about U.S. law. Though, that's not to say I even think the law here is in any way infallible. After all, laws are made by people who are elected directly or indirectly through popular vote and so since neither voters nor the elected officials they vote are guaranteed to be right in their views, why should the laws necessarily always be right? After all, that's why we get laws changed in the first place.)

As for welfare, like I said - I think it's a bad policy too to be forcing upon people. It should not be mandated by law. Have a voluntary fund that people can contribute to if they want for the purpose served by welfare? Sure, let people do t if they want to, but don't MAKE them pay it. And welfare in fact does not even necessarily have to be a violation of the body indirectly, it can be a violation of the mind indirectly. Welfare is taking somebody's money that is rightfully theirs and then making them (that it's a mandatory and not voluntary policy means they know full well it is not what people really want done with their money if they had the choice) give it to people who do not have any rightful claim to it. Since people can make money by simply selling their ideas, it means it is a violation of rights, but not necessarily of bodily integrity specifically.

I already mentioned earlier about the conditions of a mom and a born child. If she doesn't want it she doesn't have to kill it/let it die, just give it away, so that's why after the child is born it would be infanticide and wrong, since death of the child is in no way necessary at all. As for the time it would take in between, hey, abortions need to be scheduled ahead of time any way. And not to mention, why DIDN'T the mom in this case just get an abortion any way of schedule the baby to be given up for adoption at birth? And if nothing else and you really want rid of that baby immediately, I do believe hospitals will take any baby left with them at any time as they don't want to hear about the baby ending up left to die instead. Other public places like post offices I think will likely do something similar and if even that is no good I'm willing to be if you call child services and tell them they need to take the child from you, they'll do it if they think they have to or the child will come to harm. Also, what about the dad again though as an aside? How come the mom would be held responsible for the child but the dad would not? If the mom willfully opted to take full custody of the child, ok, he doesn't owe anything, but if that was the case then why did the mom who wanted the kid that much now not want it so much she doesn't care at all what happens to it?

How does every child have the right to guardianship? That's one I've never heard before. Please, do explain this idea. And any way, what about orphanages? Do they count as "guardianships" or would they count as massive rights violations, eh? And as for abortion, again, the fetus has violated the pregnant person's bodily integrity first. Thus as the first one to violate somebody else's rights, they, in this case the fetus, are now fine to have their own rights violated as much as is necessary to end the violation that they (still talking about the fetus just to be clear) started. So even if there is whatever this "right to guardianship" you mention, it along with their right to life (as long as we're going with the argument that the fetus at this point counts as a living person with rights) are aloud to be disregarded for the sake of ending the violation of the pregnant person's bodily integrity. Oh, and curiosity again, as to this supposed "guardianship right" - who counts as a child? people under 18 or does it mean all people are a "child" of somebody and so must always have a guardian? If it's the second, then what do you say about people who's parents have died? And even if you do say adoption agencies themselves count as guardianships, then what about the interval between when the biological parents decide they do not wish to be parents of the child and when it actually gets to and under the control of the adoption agency? When before has a parent/parents with full custody ever given permission to somebody else to take their child and it was considered kidnapping still? As for being unconscious during abortion, if the permission ahead of time was not good enough to count as permission while they were unconscious, then no medical procedure that requires you to be unconscious at the time could ever be legal because they would not have permission at the time. Imagine how impossible it would be to ever get so many surgeries done. No doctor would ever be willing to do any surgery that required an unconscious patient in a country that took that legal stance because it would be sure to get them sent to prison eventually. In fact, if when the pregnant person is unconscious they are not considered "present" then it would be child neglect/abandonment -- in that case, any time the person SLEPT it would be a crime.

All right, you know, I'm done reading this rubbish. You can't seriously write this stuff and say to yourself honestly that you're right. You just said that if we feel our rights are being violated we can do ANYTHING, as extreme as we feel is appropriate, to end the violation. I mean that puts Adolf Hitler totally in the clear because he felt his rights were being infringed upon by the jews and he took extreme measures to prevent it from happening further, you think you can apply separate morals to each situation and totally ignore your ethical inconsistencies as long as it's convenient. To be honest you don't even have a definition of "bodily integrity", so of course you can just make it mean anything you want to at any given time. I thought it was safe to assume that you were using the term synonymously with "right to live" but it appears to be just another word for "convenience". You can keep on telling yourself we can rightfully break the ethical barriers of morality as long as we get what we want, but you just don't realize the ultimate irony that such a perspective is immoral in itself. For that you clearly have no regard; your entire argument amounts to "it is right to kill others to protect ourselves". In your mind having an abortion is okay when pregnancy risks your life, but you can't honestly think it's quite so noble to kill child after child telling yourself each time, "it's okay because I'm protecting myself".

And please, don't flatter yourself by taking my resignation from this discussion as a victory, because it's certainly not. I just can't bring up the same points over and over as they are completely or partially disregarded in an entirely concentric debate. I mean it's such a tight circle you are now arguing AGAINST what was just formerly your own argument; birth can cause trauma, you said in favour of abortion, but when stated that trauma is even more likely to occur as a result of abortion rather than birth you disregard the point as irrelevant. I guess it's only relevant when it's from a pro-abortion stance; and even further asinine is the fact that you actually used the same argument in your own favour later on in your response. You originally passed off the argument with "anti-abortionists make abortionists feel guilty". Was that a joke? Like the guilt has nothing to do with seeing and feeling your unborn child ripped from your womb and butchered. And to be honest, if a word I say makes someone regret killing their child, then it's a step in the right direction, because evidently someone needs to project some morality into the issue.

Your "stranded friend" analogy is a terrible one, by the way. Who is the "stranded friend" in this case, drunken unprotected orgy sex? And something tells me a woman willing to go through being raped by a stranger to help a friend out would feel a little compassion in other areas, too, such as pregnancy perhaps. Furthermore, your example suggests a great moral void as you express that fighting to stop a rape is comparable to killing a living human product of your OWN actions. Further yet, rescuing a stranded woman is only an issue of morals. To have the moral integrity to risk your life and well-being for the convenience of an friend then surely you have the same obligation when it comes to sparing the life of your own child.

It's a little frightening that, while killing unborn children doesn't provoke your emotions in the slightest, the concept of abstinence from sex horrifies you so direly. I don't at all understand your justification that, since people enjoy having sex carelessly and often without precaution, abortion should be within our rights as people. I suppose you also support the decriminalization of the act of prostitution then -- something that, as repulsive and primitive as it is in every aspect, is still actually far more just than abortion and is arguably a victimless crime. I don't know many who would deny that sexuality's main purpose is to produce life, but you seem to feel that way. If you ask me, that's like saying the main purpose of eating isn't to satiate hunger but to become obese, since many people like doing it just for its own sake. In fact sex is like dining on many levels! It can be enjoyable when it's good and makes you comfortable when you desire it, yet doing it too much is an absolutely disgusting habit that you're surely going to regret later! In fact just about everything you said about sex can apply to food, how entertaining (especially that it does not usually result in offspring). And speaking of entertaining I found your comment about the naturality of sex to be a little ironic. You might have an entirely different grasp of nature than I, but I'm fairly certain when animals have sex they generally want children. And please, do us both a favour and don't bring up dolphins. Dolphins have careless sex, but they DON'T have abortions when they get pregnant from it. Finally, you lost sight of what I originally said while you were busy replying -- which wasn't that sex is ONLY for reproduction. Of course we have natural lust, but you must be somewhat weak of will to obey your every desire without responsible consideration. Perhaps school shootings happen because of the natural desire for revenge that most developed humans are able to deal with in a civilized manner.

If the disagreement between us stems from the issue of murder as retaliation from sexual assault then you may as well just have admitted you're wrong. Canada is one thing, but in this case you'd be heavily charged even in the USA, for using calculated lethal force to repel rape. In Canada you can't even kill someone for trying to kill you; but I'll disregard Canadian law as clearly the code of criminal law in the United States is superior in every way. There are very few cases in which an American is permitted to kill another human being (excluding abortion). Retaliation is absolutely not one of those. The laws of self-defense rely entirely on the use of force; rape itself is a non-lethal assault and thus using lethal force to repel it would be deemed excessive -- in other words by the letter of the law you'd be charged as the attacker. To put the situation into other terms, a criminal breaks into your house with a brick, and you blow him away with 3 rounds of 12-gauge buckshot. Since the criminal's attack was a minor threat it was in no way appropriate to completely annihilate him with three rounds from a shotgun; the force is excessive. It would have been more suitable to use the gun as a bludgeon to incapacitate the thief. PLUS, there's the point that you can never kill another without an explicit warning of the violation granting you the use of force in the first place; technically it is not even rape until you warn that the actions are against your will, and even then, you are not permitted to use lethal force to prevent the lesser crime of rape (don't even bother arguing the severity of rape in contrast to murder -- murder is regarded legally as the most severe type of crime. I realize you and many others may feel more emotion toward rape than toward murder, but that's tough. Rape is the violation of one or a few personal rights; murder is essentially the violation of every human right, as the human ceases to exist altogether). My point is, if you feel the man who raped you (or attempted to rape you) should be punished by death for his crime, make an appeal to court. In some cases depending on circumstances the verdict may arrive with death as the only adequate solution.

And speaking of crimes against humanity, Efstathios -- whether you realized it or not, you just likened abortion to war. For the first time in this discussion I agree. As for the rest of your conversation I simply encourage you to read it again. You're smart, you should be able to see that your points could all actually be attributed as anti-abortion just as easily as how they were intended. For example, your absolute gem of a summary, "You can do anything with your body as long as it doesn't get in someone else's way". You kind of made a half-assed correction saying that an unborn fetus is an exception, but that's tedious at best. A 600-pound man is walking down a narrow hallway with six extra arms sewn onto his sides and an exposed brain. An younger man, completely normal, attempts to pass him. Who is at fault here and why? The normal man should not have to deal with the repulsively-mutilated older man like this. According to you, should he? I mean why not? The mutilated man has been here longer, so you can't really use that as an argument. Plus, you could just as easily say that the normal man is getting in the way of the mutilated man, who is to judge? In other words you could easily argue that the mother is in fact getting in the way of the child! And just to correct you, well, you're wrong. You can't do anything you feel like with your own body regardless of whether or not it affects someone else. Like I said, suicide is actually illegal -- of course if it works then you can't actually be charged but it's still a recorded crime regardless, and if it doesn't work you have committed the crime of attempted suicide. There are victimless crimes, I'm sure you're aware (although it's always arguable if they are truly victimless). You are not allowed to prostitute your own body (yet), even though no-one it affects is complaining. You just have to face the fact that there are limits to what you are allowed to do with your own body. If you think about it, the entire foundation of criminal law is the restriction of what you can do with your own body.

Look, you're even trying to contest the fact that all children have the right to guardianship. What if a child's parents die? Then the child's rights are violated (sound familiar) and another member or members of their family are obligated to take custody of the child. If custody is refused they are sent to an orphanage. I mean what exactly do you think an orphan IS? "Orphan" being the root-word of "orphanage". Didn't think that one out very well. Anyway, once there, statistics show they are often brought home by a couple in less than 8 weeks from arrival (often at quite a grand sum of money, adoptable children being in such short supply currently with such high demand). How unfortunate more people don't support the adoption market. After all, you know what they say -- one man's trash is another man's treasure.

Goodbye.  

[Efstathios]

Even if you don't come back to reply NOCTRVNVS, I hope you at least read this.

It is prefectly ok for you to have your own opinion

but, holy mother maria, do you really believe that babies are in short supply and quickly adopted? In a sense you're right.

White, healthy, infants with blond hair and blue eyes are in high demand and short supply.
Everyone else can rot as far as most adopters are concerned.
Children with disabilities aren't adopted. They simply aren't, you can point out 1 or 2 examples maybe, but they simply aren't "desireable".  

[[Psychotic.Ballerina]]

I don't really agree with abortion, but I do believe that it's the woman's choice if she wants to have an abortion or not.  

[Naynram Ukir]

These are my ideas on abortion. Personally, and emotionally, I can't stand the thoughts of abortion. Honestly. It almost throws me into a panic attack, so I have to miss out on parts of those South Park episodes where they make it into a joke. I mean, honestly, I can laugh at a guy who hung himself before I can of a video of someone getting an abortion. >>;; Anywho...

What brought me to be pro-choice is just a few simple things. I really wish I could say like some people, "It's the right of the women", I guess that's important also, but not the exact reason why I am for legal abortions.

If they were illegal then people would do it one way or another. Back ally abortions (or even one done in a home) are 10x's more sickening to my mind than a legal hospital one. And worse, it puts the person's life at risk.
I believe that a person who is old enough to give more birth, has more worth than someone who has not touched so many people yet. This may seem wrong and cruel, but to me they do. I mean, a fetus does not have as many people have connections with it. If a fetus were removed, it would be alot less traumatizing to everyone than an already out of the womb person dying.

This also depends also on your definition of human. No one should be pressured into getting an abortion or not getting one or else it can traumatize the person themself.
Then there's also the case of accidents that happen when a condom breaks or even rape, I'm fine with this if they want to.

However, I draw the cut-off line when it gets to the 1st or the beginning of the second trimester. I mean, I know this is an appeal to emotion but in the second trimester, I can see a baby in the fetus. And then I think it's like killing a newborn. So that's my position on it.

I could change my ideals and beliefs, but this is honestly what I see. I can't help it. It has nothing to do with "Oh it has a soul" but I just can't stand the thought of almost newborns being killed. I mean, yes, I know it's a part of the woman's body, but the fetus is also gaining its own independence itself.

 

[Israk]

First, no matter how far or early in the pregnancy you do it, you are killing a living thing, it's just a fact, hate to break it to you. Second, if this child will grow up in a terrible live, then abortion wcould be saving it hardships, think of it this way, you get an abortion, the child dies reletivly quick and not to painfully (that's me assuming, I've never researched the procedure, but I can tell you a bicycle spoke from some underground abortionist is not the way to go) If said child is left to live, they might not be fed enough, or caed for properly, disease from poor living conditions or malnutrion sets in and death is slow and painful, you choose.  

[Israk]

Once again, I left out a point I wanted to make. I noticed a few people calling the fetus an "extension" of the mother. The fetus is it's own organism SUSTAINED by the mother, if it was an extension it would also share the blood or the mother, cause it would BE the mother, but it doesn't, the blood of mother and fetus NEVER mix, the fetus and or mother could die if they happened to have different blood types.  

[daemonchylde]

the bottom line is, life can be ugly sometimes, get over it. it is against....totally against human rights to outlaw abortion. the government, in no way, has a right to govern in personnal, private life. it is suppossed to be seperate, such as the seperation of church and state. for a religous man to make a law based on religion is hypocrasy. the legislations against abortions is not only a blow to women's rights but it is a blow to every American who is not a WASP. white anglo saxon protestant. if abortion is outlawed by the standards of pro-lifers, then there would have to be laws in place to convict males of , abandonment, neglect, and murder of their unborn sperm during masturbation. and i would love see anyone force to make me take a pharmaceutical form of birth-control w/o my choice. all the pro-lifers that use God as an excuse to argue have no argument. "oh my, God created life, and we believe in an after-life but we'll be damned if we let God have that life back" ridiculous. u can all have your say, your signs, your protests, but as for me i am old enough to vote, and i will use that instead of screaming threats of hell, and making people feel ashamed for making a good decision that is within their rights as a human being of free choice, and of free will.  

[ArtemisLust]

If you want to abort, then go for it, so long as the kid isn't too long in development.  

[Israk]

But how long is too long?