Why support abortion for rape victims?

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Not someone who refuses to. And it wasn't ok that man to murder someone for preforming an abortion. Just like it wasn't ok for the Spartans to commit infanticide. You don't give up morals because the law allows you the choice to do so.

I didn't say I wouldn't have problems with it, but if it was the law, then people most certainly could do it. My issue was with your statement that you cannot do it, not with whether you believed it was morally ok.



I did not say all, I said most. Most of those born into poverty will die in poverty. Most of those born to convicted criminals will become convicted criminals. This is fact.

And you seem to be the one playing arbitrator with the value of human life. According to you, a single teenage, unemployed, drug addicted, poverty stricken pregnant girl should be forced to have a child that will destroy her life even more just because you don't like certain laws.

Yes, maybe that child will grow up happy, well-adjusted, and a productive member of society, but more likely, that child will be a burden to society and detrimental to the happiness and well-being of all those around it as well as leading a life of misery itself.

If you want to continue arguing the morality of abortion, that is fine by me, but since it is legal, I really don't think you have much of a say in what people do.

I am not asking you to. Feel free to not get as many abortions as you want. Obey your own moral code as best you can, but do not try to force it on others when the law is not on your side.

This is stupid logic. What would be the point in discussing anything if we are just going to accept the law as perfect both practically and morally?

In that case, I have no problems with your opinion.



There are a multitude of people out there who do not find their lives to be beautiful.





You are reading a bit too much into my words. I personally feel that there is entirely too much poverty, and that adding to their ranks is going to lead to much more suffering for more people for a longer period of time. I think we should be fighting poverty, not abortion. I do not feel that it is ok to ask existing people to sacrifice their future happiness, finances, hopes, and dreams for the sake of a potential person's potential happiness. I have lived in poverty stricken areas my entire life, and until recently was well under the poverty line. I have seen first hand how difficult life is for those who are trapped in poverty and hopelessness. Increasing that population helps no one.



You can talk about what you believe all you want to; I am just saying that as long as abortion is legal, you cannot demand others to follow your personal version of moral law.

Appeal to law. Over time laws are fickle and can be changed. While the individual cannot do much in the face of the law, it is possible for a growing minority fighting injustice to set the law on its ear. All it should take is acceptance of the unborn as the persons that they are with as much right to life as those already outside the womb.

That doesn't mean "majority makes it right," of course, but right or wrong the will of the people often prevails in a free society.

It often does (blue and green means generally legal).

The demographic changes in the US (declining overall religiosity and a greater share of religious views that are more pro-choice) mean that pro-choice sentiment will increase over time.

... assuming, of course, a free society.

Sources:
http://www.pewforum.org/2009/01/15/abor ... filiation/
http://www.pewforum.org/2012/10/09/nones-on-the-rise/

The only reason I bring law in is because you cannot demand someone do what you want if the law does not support you. If abortion was not legal, I would probably not be in this argument. If you don't like the laws, by all means continue to write to your representatives and tell them so in no uncertain terms.

We're working on it.

actually, I've been a vegetarian (with occasional brief lapses) since 1995. Also, I'm a socialist.

Yes. I don't think that anyone's brief life is worth the bodily autonomy of another person. I find the idea of forcibly using someone's body revolting, basically the same thing as slavery if not worse: 'I will take this labor/liver/blood supply/womb from you, and there is nothing you can do about it.' It strikes me on such a visceral level as morally evil that it's hard to even articulate.

Yeah, actually they are (at least at the stage when most abortions occur) and yeah, actually I can. I've studied enough biology, and dissected enough brains (and whole organisms), to have a pretty good idea of how much organization is there and how much neurological function it takes to have some sort of sentience and sapience. Zefs don't even function on the level of a salmon until the 3rd trimester.

Again, you're saying something that belies a world view so completely foreign to what I consider morally correct that it's hard to even believe that's what you're saying, even though the wording is quite clear. Of course it matters. It's like the difference between having a ball-and-chain attached to your ankle, and a backpack that you can take off and hand to another person sometimes. One is a punishment; the other is a choice.



Personally, I'm ok with the extant restrictions on 3rd trimester abortions (life & health of the mother, fetal abnormality), in large part because of that neurological development that I previously mentioned. Birth is still the dividing line, where the fetus goes from being inside the woman and dependent on her body, to being outside of it and using its own heart, lungs, kidneys, etc; at the point of labor, though, actually giving birth is going to be the safest way to get the fetus out.
To me, the point of an abortion is to 'not go through pregnancy, labor, and childbirth,' so waiting 9 months and starting labor sort of makes the abortion a moot point.



Well, clearly I disagree.
People are dying for lack of livers, bone marrow, and kidneys every day; why don't we forcibly establish a donor registry that every citizen must participate in, and take one kidney, some marrow, and a third of a liver from everyone, so that those who need kidneys, marrow, or livers to survive don't die on the waiting list? It would save hundreds or thousands of lives every year, and very few people would die in the donation process or suffer from any long-term harm. Hell, why not mandate biannual blood donations from everyone who is an acceptable donor?

Yeah, it actually does matter what I think, since you don't get to impose your views on the rest of the world any more than you get to take a kidney from me even if you need it more than I do.


No; abnormal breathing and insufficient oxygenation is a medical condition. Breathing is the normal state of a healthy mammal.

Intended!?
By whom? Obviously not by the woman in question, if she's seeking an abortion. Cancer is natural, too. Everything dies of something, naturally. Lots of women used to die of pregnancy and childbirth, and even if they have 'normal' pregnancies, they're often pretty goddamn miserable for 9 months.

You are incorrect; lung cancer sometimes kills. Pregnancy sometimes continues life in a genetically unique organism, and sometimes also kills or maims the woman in question. First-trimester abortion is ten times less likely to result in death of the woman than going through full-term pregnancy and childbirth.

That would be the medical condition known as 'suicidal ideation.'

Oh well, that's a shame for them, I wish they didn't feel that way, doesn't change want I think of the phenomena life in general.

It's the logical conclusion of what you said. Blaming the problems of poverty on the poor existing. Tsk tsk. Poor people are people, not a population number. I agree that fighting poverty is a much more important issue than abortion, but that doesn't by extension make abortion right.


I'm not demanding anything from anyone, just debating what I think the law SHOULD be. The law as it is is completely irrelevant.

Where do I start?

You don't have to move if you don't want to, its your choice. You seem quite outraged that you should be dictated to about where you live, while trying to dictate to others what happens inside their own bodies! Hypocrisy doesn't even begin to describe that!

Whatever your views on race, I don't share them, I haven't come across that sort of thinking in real life, I've never been to America, but I can't imagine that many people think that way.

Hey, you still would have been older than me. I've been vegetarian sense I've been born with daily lapses. I guess I must be RADICALLY socialist.

And you don't find just leaving someone to die when you can easily save them to be morally evil? I don't think it would be as bad as slavery as slavery is control over one's labors and efforts and time, not just their tissues. Now, my conclusion was bit extreme, but the analogy is false. Pregnancy isn't control over a woman's body, that's the natural process of things. Rather, abortion is violates the fetuses rights over it's own body AND it's life. The difference between cutting open a guy to take out his liver and NOT cutting open a woman to take out a fetus is pretty f*****g obvious. Now, I'm going to make this a clear, if I a woman is going to risk her life with an underground abortion procedure I'm not going to stop it, and indeed if a woman is desperate enough to do that she should be given a clinical one, but I don't think abortions should just be handed out on the whim.

Um, most abortions occur after 6 weeks. By then it looks like this:

It's clearly organized, it even has proto-toes. Even a morula is more organized than it appears as the cells are loosly organized based on what they are going to ultimately develop into. Oh, you dissected brains, good for you, tell, how do you know what it's feeling with so much brain? You literally can't determine sentience for anything, it's a philosophical dilemma. Anyway, the potential sapience and sentience of the embryo at the time of abortion has never really been a key point of mine as I agree they most likely aren't aware at that point in time. However, that doesn't make it right. It's like killing a guy while he is unconscious during surgery because you got tired of performing the operation. He isn't aware at the moment, but he certainly would have been shortly if you didn't freaking kill him.

Let me phrase it this way: it doesn't matter if you a carry a backpack or an iron ball if you are going to use it to justify killing a baby. The different is between wearing an iron ball for awhile and not killing a baby and not wearing the iron ball for awhile AND KILLING A BABY. What type of morality says it's okay to kill a baby just so you stop wearing an iron ball? THAT'S foreign to me.

(And pregnancy is not a punishment, stop living in that mindset. Just because you don't like something and you have to live with it doesn't mean it's a punishment. By your logic it magically stops being a punishment and becomes a choice once the baby is born. )

And I say if there is no complications you might as well go through with the 9 months. It's a life experience.

I think that would be a great idea. Anyway, the key difference is this clause: "only a single person is a viable donor". Definitely we should find ways to increase the supply of parts, there is no need for making it mandatory or drafted if the supply is increased to appropriate level voluntary. The least we can do is set organ donation to the default, it has a huge impact.

And what makes you the arbitor of who and who is not a person? That's why your personal views don't matter, mine don't either. Oh, and what's with the term zef, where did that come from? It sounds like a racial slur. Hey, you were a zef once too!

Pregnancy isn't a medical condition either if you are going to go by that definition. It's also a normal state of a healthy mammal. As I said, equivocation.

It is not up for the individual to decide what is or is not a disease, otherwise we could have children institutionalized simply for refusing to clean up their room. I want you to go up to every expecting mother you see and tell them they are diseased, I think they will like. Now, the difference isn't the hard to understand. Diseases are not a part of the natural process of a species survival, even though they are naturally occurring and ecologically valuable. Pregnancy is REQUIRED for a species survival, you're mom was once pregnant, otherwise you wouldn't have been born. You can hardly call a essential mechanism a species survival a disease. I guess have s**t in your bowels after eating and piss in your bladder after drinking is a disease too?

"You are incorrect; lung cancer sometimes kills." ARE YOU f*****g KIDDING ME? ARE YOU f*****g SERIOUS? OH, I guess shooting someone in the head sometimes kills them as well. Hey, 5% of them do survive! I might as well say riding a car sometimes kills, you might get in a reck, heck, going outside sometimes kills you as well. Breathing could kill you to! Oh, oh, people sometimes don't like it when you forcibly strip them naked, constrict them with binds and gags, and then sodomize them. People also sometimes don't like being hugged. I guess rape and hugs are the same thing, amiright? You don't know how f*****g ridiculous you sounds saying that both cancer and pregnancy sometimes kill. Yes, you are less likely to die from abortion, you are also significantly less likely to die when you sit on your ass instead of doing something heroic (like going into fires, standing up to armed attacks, pushing old lady out from in front of cars ect.), though I can't find any precise statistics on heroism. Not to mention that there is nearly a 10 times, in the very least more than 5 times, greater chance a fetus will die if you go with an abortion than follow through with the pregnancy.

Oh, and your claim about pregnancy only sometimes resulting in a genetically unique organism is more or less false: a genetically unique organism is created at conception, which could be said to be the start of pregnancy. It's a bit more complicated than that because of the start of pregnancy is harder to measure and with in vitro it's just more complicated, it's ultimately a more abstract process when you are getting that picky, but birth does not magically turn a fetus into a unique organism.

Never said it was healthy to not want to be breathing, but it's the belief, not the fact that you are breathing, that's considered a disease. By extension, I guess not wanting to get pregnant is a disease. (jk).

I guess I misunderstood the point you were trying to make. What was your point, exactly?


Applying my health care talents to helping someone is a far cry from forcing me to donate part of my body to them.

What, you don't think that the surgery to cut someone's kidney/liver out, and then to recover from that, counts as time and effort? You don't think that pregnancy counts as time and effort? Not to mention a pretty significant amount of pain and suffering.


Yeah, actually it is. The zef takes over a woman's body pretty damn effectively.


Even a born human does not have the right to use another person's body without their permission, much less an unformed zef. If someone were to try to take my liver without my permission, I would be well within my rights to kill them, no matter how much they needed it.


Abortion, unlike c-sections, do not require 'cutting a woman open.' That's part of why it's safer.

Baka. Do you really f*****g think that women do this casually? It's surgery. From what I hear, it really f*****g hurts. I've heard that in some cultures abortion is used as the primary means of birth control, but I have to think that it's pure ignorance and/or the lack of availability of other forms of birth control that make it so, because swallowing a pill every day must hurt a hell of a lot less.

That pic is a little bit advanced, actually, wikipedia notwithstanding.
http://php.med.unsw.edu.au/embryology/i ... ent#Week_6


The level of 'organization' present at that stage is negligible, despite the appearance of 'toes' (no, they're not actually toes, even at 8 weeks).

It's impossible to determine with precision, but it's quite possible to have a fair degree of accuracy. We can look at neurological organization and compare it to the complexity of animal behavior as brains get more and more complex; like I said, a zef isn't even at the level of a fish until the 3rd trimester. EEGs corroborate this conclusion. Things just aren't connected up enough until then.

No, it's like killing an unconscious guy who's physically hooked up to your body and preventing you from living your life, and will be stuck on you for 9 months.

It's not a f*****g "baby." It's a non-sentient, non-sapient zef, using your body without your permission.

It stops being a punishment when and if the woman in question starts wanting it. Once it's born, she can hand it over to CPS or to an adoption agency, and do her best to forget about it, if she doesn't want it.
Pregnancy is one of the greatest gifts that one person can give to another, but without it being a gift given to that person by choice, it becomes a theft of the greatest magnitude instead. It's not a walk in the park.

It's a miserable grueling experience that saps your body so seriously that it literally takes years to recover, and may never be recovered from completely. It's not unusual for women to have permanent physiological damage from pregnancy and childbirth, and I'm not talking about stretch marks or other cosmetic issues.
Funny how pro-life people always end up minimizing the experience of pregnancy and childbirth, every single goddamn thread we go through.


Ever heard of tissue typing? You can't just take a liver from any random person and stick it into a person. That's part of why waiting for an organ takes so long. Right now, there might be someone out there who you're the only perfect tissue match for, and who will die if you don't happen to liquefy your brain in a motorcycle accident in the next moth or so.
To be clear, I'm a registered organ donor, but it only happens once I'm brain-dead and have no interest in using the parts any more.

Democracy.

Zygote/Embryo/Fetus. Accounts for the entire span of development from fertilization through birth. If you're not one of those, "it's a person from fertilization!" people, then the relevant term would be 'ef.'
I wouldn't exactly say that I was a zef once, any more than I would say that I was an ovum and/or a spermatozoan once; rather, there once existed a zef which eventually became me.

Pregnancy isn't a medical condition either if you are going to go by that definition. It's also a normal state of a healthy mammal. As I said, equivocation.
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No, actually, pregnancy is not the normal state of a healthy mammal. The fact that it happens on accident does not make it "normal," it makes it "common."

The medical community considers pregnancy a medical condition requiring close monitoring, periodic blood draws, frequent office visits, and often other (uncomfortable) tests as well, not to mention a suite of special behaviors that the woman is advised to perform in order to make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible. All of the extra care and monitoring is part of why women don't experience the common condition of death in childbirth as frequently as they used to.


If they want the zef, they'll agree that they should be getting adequate prenatal care. If they don't want it, the'll be likely to decline the prenatal care and possibly call it something worse than 'disease.'


It's required for humans, yes. Your language is very imprecise.

My mother was pro-choice. I'm glad to know that I was wanted, and not something that she eventually convinced herself to 'accept.'

I can call it a medical condition. Even a dangerous medical condition.


Breathing does not kill anyone, unless there is poison in the air.

heroism or inaction is a choice.

The zef doesn't get a choice, since it's using the woman's body without her permission.

You are correct that conception is when a genetically unique 2n organism is created, but it is not the start of pregnancy. Pregnancy starts when the zygote implants in the uterus, which less than half of them do.

Presumably you mean "genetically unique." No, it turns it into an organism capable of its own homeostasis.

Only if you consider pregnancy to be always healthy, normal, comfortable, mundane, routine, life-sustaining and good for the woman in question.
None of which it is.

All your making it sound like to me is people who get abortions are sexually inexperienced whiners. And WTF is a zef? Abortion is actually more dangerous to the mother than giving birth is, any abortion. Abortion is the most abnormal way to take care of it. Infection, infertility, and death are all raised as a chance drastically when getting an abortion. Half birth is one of the most sick ones I've seen yet. It is healthier for the Woman with what you call a 'zef', to give birth than to ever get an abortion. Fear of taking one of natures gift (god's gifts) and treating it like trash is your business, yes, but this thing you call a 'zef' is still living, made out of human cells, and is living. It doesn't matter if it is a parasite, it is still human. A woman's embryos are human, how could what you call a 'zef' not be?