Abortion sucks

[Octavious]

It is a valid criticism.

Lol! Making an argument that better nutrition leads to improved child development does not turn brainbomb's death by starvation claptrap into a valid criticism

I have a fair amount of sympathy for your point of view. I don't accept that it has any bearing on the abortion argument. I also think that a major problem is the definition of poverty which isn't fit for purpose. I am one of those children who grew up in poverty according to the current definition, and lack of nutrition was never a problem.

[Octavious]

So you can ask the question, 'where would I personally draw the line', and then decide that you are such an omniscience line drawer that it should be applicable to everyone. Or you can take the Pro-choice logic, and say, each person must take responcibility for their own decision. Which happens to protect victims of rape, along with all kinds of pregnant people whose circumstances you're not aware of.

Is it not true, Ora, that every country that allows abortion draws a line? I am not aware of any nation, certainly no civilised one, that allows an abortion at any stage during pregnancy. Some allow no abortion, some allow abortion only in certain circumstances, and some (the most liberal) allow abortions up to a certain time in the pregnancy. In none is there a right for the woman to have an abortion at any time of her choosing. In none is there a demand for this right to exist except from the most extreme fringes. It is accepted by the vast majority of men and women that society must set the limits, not the individual woman. What changes from society to society is what those limits should be, not that they should be surrendered in favour of a mythical right for absolute control over one's body.

[orathaic]

It is not a mythical right to control one's body, when a suicidal teenager can throw herself down a stairs. It is a very real reality (most 'rights' are actually based on reality).

But let me take it further, making abortion illegal has not been shown to significantly decrease the number of abortions, it does make them less safe.

In Ireland it left pregnant people travelling to Britain m, which may have taken a month or two to save for; and as a result it effectively lead to later term abortions.

Now we offer pills to pregnant people who are less than 10 weeks in, which is safer, cheaper, and allows us offer them more support (both medical and social/emotional).

We have become a safer, more inclusive, and healthier nation. And I for one am proud of Ireland's progress.

[Octavious]

You are proud of a law that severely restricts the right to have an abortion after twelve weeks. That's my point, Ora. The law you are so proud of dictates what a woman can or can't do with their body in just the same way that it did before. The choice of what is or isn't acceptable is 100% that of the state, not the woman. The only difference is that the definition of what the state considers acceptable is more closely aligned to your personal view.

This is not about sexism. This is not about giving woman control over their reproductive systems, or denying women rights. This is simply a question of society deciding what it considers morally acceptable.

[orathaic]

I'm proud because, as I said, of how far we have come.

But your argument seems rather pointless, by 12 weeks you've had the time to choose an abortion or not. Isn't that the point? (later than that it is allowed when medically necessary... Which is also fine).

And the fact that this is about a misogynistic attitude towards women owning their own sexuality is born out by the history of the pro-life movement. In Ireland in 1983 we brought in an amendment making abortions illegal, but we also have a system which effectively made women the property of their husbands. There was a law which meant 'marital rape' was not a crime, divorce was illegal, and contraception was next to impossible to access.

That was literally no choice to refuse sex with your husband, no option to divorce him, no access to contraception. The state (via the Catholic Church) treated women like baby producing machines (homosexuality was also illegal, as it didn't produce babies).

And nobody was talking about legalising abortion, the campaign to add a constitutional ban was to act as a victory against progressive elements. Literally a political victory to demoralise those campaigners who believed these things were wrong.

It is a matter of historical record. And the US has a similar history.

You can say that you personally are not being sexist when thinking or voting on this one issue. But you do so while willfully ignoring the history and context of the pro-life movement. It has been anti-woman for longer than either of us have been alive.

[Fluminator]

The sexism claim is fairly basic. Women not having control over their reproductive organs makes them unequal. The evidence again is clear when you look at the other policies pushed by the anti-woman movement. They want to teach abstinence only education (which results in a higher rate of unwanted/crisis pregnancies) they want to restrict access to contraception, and they want to place the blame on pregnant women for having sex (ignoring the occurance of rape entirely). This shaming of women's sexuality is very anti-woman, and nowhere in the world (never mind the US) do you see men's sexuality being treated the same way.

Opposing abortion is only one arrow in their quiver. But it is the strongest one, because the idea of taking a life is very emotive (especially an innocent one). I'm not sure you will find gender discrimination (ie who gets aborted) in the US, though it happens in other parts of the world. I don't see the fact that female embryos are aborted in India is relevant to the US. I might equally say that some children starve to death in Africa (and if they are really pro-life they would go out and undo the harmful trading practices and exploitation which causes this).

The counter point is merely that an embryo is not a life. And this was the official position of Christianity for thousands of years. Mostly because miscarriages (today) occur in ~40% of pregnancies, but without modern technology you can't tell is a 10 week pregnancy is actually alive in any meaningful sense.

So you can ask the question, 'where would I personally draw the line', and then decide that you are such an omniscience line drawer that it should be applicable to everyone. Or you can take the Pro-choice logic, and say, each person must take responcibility for their own decision. Which happens to protect victims of rape, along with all kinds of pregnant people whose circumstances you're not aware of.

And I would not, as Ireland has only this month begun to administer abortions, I have grown up with the reality that the anti-woman movement would go so far as to force a raped teenager to throw herself down a stairs in the misguided belief that mental health doesn't really count - because a dead teenager who never gives birth is somehow 'pro-life'. And the a women who really wants a child, but whose fetus has developed a fatal abnormality is refused an abortion, develops sepsis and actually dies.

Unfortunately, there are too many stories like these.

I mean, obviously stories like that are terrible, and why I support places like the pregnancy care centre who support pregnant women who are struggling to afford it. And I'm sure there are many stories like that, but I don't think it compares to the 125000 abortions performed worldwide every day. (According to the WHO)
Rape makes up a very tiny percentage of that, and I'm sure it's beside the point because if I said we make an exception for that, you'd still be in favour of allowed abortion. (Although really, imo the guy who raped needs to spend the rest of his life forced to work to pay for the girl AND kid to survive after being castrated)

Still though, some genuinely sad stories doesn't mean 125000 deaths should be allowed.
Like, the key here is, as you said, is the embryo human life and worth protecting? I don't really care what the official position of Christianity is on this. For the longest time they thought the earth was 6000 years old. I look at pictures of the embryo, and it seems so clearly human to me. And the science indicated it's fully alive and not much changes between being in the womb and then leaving it. And how doctors abort them is a very gnarly and murdery procedure. A person is a person and deserves rights, no matter how small they are.

I agree that men needs to be held more accountable when impregnating women btw.

[brainbomb]

Are you arguing against abortion or social safety nets or both?

I was curious why you think that American child mortality rates would remain nil in the absence of a welfare net.

[brainbomb]

anyway Im not a passionate advocate of abortion so its gonna be really hard to use facts to convince me pro life is the scientific or moral imperative.

[brainbomb]

mostly because I used to be very pro life and I view abortion as a necessary evil which is too broad of an issue to take on a case by case basis of what is too morally irresponsible versus what is a right

[Jamiet99uk]

I love* how lots of Americans are pro-life whilst also being climate change deniers.

Like, you demand that thousands of babies should be protected and saved because oh they're so precious, but you're trashing the world they'll be forced to live in and rendering it uninhabitable for them.

[Jamiet99uk]

I DEMAND THAT THIS FOETUS IS PROTECTED BECAUSE JESUS LOVES EVERY SPERM.

BUT I DONT GIVE A SHIT IF THE BABY HAS TO GROW UP IN A TOXIC, POLLUTED, OVERHEATED HELLHOLE.

[Octavious]

But your argument seems rather pointless, by 12 weeks you've had the time to choose an abortion or not. Isn't that the point? (later than that it is allowed when medically necessary... Which is also fine).

No. The difference between the two positions can be summarised thus. The pro-life position is that the woman has every right to choose who she has sex with or whether protection is used, but after getting pregnant the unborn child is too much like a human to be destroyed by an abortion regardless of what the woman herself believes. The position that Ireland has adopted is that the woman has every right to choose who she has sex with, whether protection is used, and whether to have an early abortion, but after twelve weeks of pregnancy the unborn child is too much like a human to be destroyed by an abortion regardless of what the woman herself believes.

The attitude to whether the woman should be the one to make the call is identical. The only difference is where the line is drawn regarding the rights of the unborn.

So my argument is that sexism and misogyny is not a fundamental part of the argument. For the vast majority it has nothing to do with the argument, and by claiming it does you lower the tone of the debate, make compromise far less likely, and do a great disservice to those women who are pro life and are dismissed as either imbeciles or brainwashed drones of the patriarchy.

[brainbomb]

Fluminator is not American... nor is Oct.

I am not a pro lifer.

No idea who youre grinding here lol

[orathaic]

Snip

I mean, obviously stories like that are terrible, and why I support places like the pregnancy care centre who support pregnant women who are struggling to afford it. And I'm sure there are many stories like that, but I don't think it compares to the 125000 abortions performed worldwide every day. (According to the WHO)
Rape makes up a very tiny percentage of that, and I'm sure it's beside the point because if I said we make an exception for that, you'd still be in favour of allowed abortion. (Although really, imo the guy who raped needs to spend the rest of his life forced to work to pay for the girl AND kid to survive after being castrated)

So, before changing the constitution, we had a citizens convention to actually discuss the issue, and while most agreed that a rape victim shouldn't be forced to carry to term, they also recognised that a trial could take more than 9 months. So you either have to let unproven rape have abortions within the first 10-12 weeks, or force rape victims to carry to term (and noting the psychological stress of this is linked to a higher suicide rate... Which kills both). This was a big factor in our 12 week law.

Second, how the rapist is punished is a separate issue. In fact the pregnant person may not want to press charges (because a huge percentage of rape cases, even when they do go to trail, fail to find the rapist guilty... So it is seen as a risk, with a cost of stress, money, and time). But as I said, a separate issue.

Third, it matters when you now have to decide on a law where you choose between no abortions for anyone under any circumstances (which leads to the worst stories above) and opening access to those people.

Still though, some genuinely sad stories doesn't mean 125000 deaths should be allowed.
Like, the key here is, as you said, is the embryo human life and worth protecting? I don't really care what the official position of Christianity is on this. For the longest time they thought the earth was 6000 years old. I look at pictures of the embryo, and it seems so clearly human to me. And the science indicated it's fully alive and not much changes between being in the womb and then leaving it. And how doctors abort them is a very gnarly and murdery procedure. A person is a person and deserves rights, no matter how small they are.

<snip>

The point is, we have had varying definition of when life begins for ever. It is not set in stone.

Second, I don't know what gnarly procedure you're imagining, but in Ireland, before ~10 weeks, you take a few pills, then go home and 24 hours later take a few more pills. It is a very simple procedure which doesn't strictly require a doctor (though having one available for support and in case of complications is idealer... In fact pregnant people in Ireland have been (illegally) taking these pills for a while without doctor's support, so we have made this safer).

Thirdly, how many millions of miscarriages are there each year? And why do the 'pro-lifers' not spend a single ounce of energy researching how to prevent or minimise these? If you truly believe a fetus is a person, then surely the millions (~40% of pregnancies) of miscarriages should be at least as important to the movement.

Again, it is not, because denying women control over their reproductive systems, shaming them for having sex, and using pregnancy as a punishment for having sex is what they actually believe in. They don't care about the child, or giving it a fair opportunity to live, they don't care that crime rates went down when abortion was introduced in the US (a 20-30 year lag for effect to follow cause...) and they don't care that easy access to abortion means every single child born is born to a parent who choose to have them.

But to the main point. Science will tell you that a single fertiliser egg is alive, just the same as an unfertilised egg. Same with a sperm cell. All of them are parts of a process towards creating a person. Being alive isn't sufficient to be considered a person. You can't use 'science shows' how this thing happens to answer 'should we' type questions, like science can tell you how to build a nuclear bomb, but not whether we should drop it on the Japanese... Science shows there is a process from living egg/sperm cells to adult human capable of producing egg/sperm cells.

Life doesn't "begin" at conception, it is a continuous process...

[Octavious]

Thirdly, how many millions of miscarriages are there each year? And why do the 'pro-lifers' not spend a single ounce of energy researching how to prevent or minimise these? If you truly believe a fetus is a person, then surely the millions (~40% of pregnancies) of miscarriages should be at least as important to the movement.

Again, it is not, because denying women control over their reproductive systems, shaming them for having sex, and using pregnancy as a punishment for having sex is what they actually believe in. They don't care about the child, or giving it a fair opportunity to live, they don't care that crime rates went down when abortion was introduced in the US (a 20-30 year lag for effect to follow cause...) and they don't care that easy access to abortion means every single child born is born to a parent who choose to have them.

You seem to have a vast amount of privileged information about all kinds of things pro-lifers don't care about. Now, I happen to know a few pro lifers who do care deeply about the opportunities given to children, who do care about miscarriages for that matter. I dare say there are many who don't see these things as priorities, but in my lifetime of observing humanity one thing I've noticed is that nobody on Earth holds a well thought out world view in which all aspects are consistent with each other. If that's the standard you insist on judging people by I fear every single one of us will be found wanting.

But back to the case in hand. Your problem is one of prejudice. You have created a crude caricature of pro lifers as misogynistic hypocrites who spend "not a single ounce of energy" on miscarriages and who "don't care about the child". People who are "anti-woman" and treat women as "baby making machines". You have successfully dehumanized the enemy and can no longer see them as anything other than monsters to be defeated. You have abandoned reason which I'm afraid to say makes you part of the problem.

[flash2015]

I might have started this thread a little bit in a trolly fashion, but this is really my biggest stumbling block to the progressive movement. I like a lot of things regarding the progressive movement. But I still can't get over the push for killing human life for the convenience of other human life.
The only responses I usually get is I'm sexist (even though I refuse to do anything that would put a woman in that situation where a pregnancy would be a huge inconvenience) (even though there are loads of women who are pro-life) (even though abortion is one of the more sexist procedures in terms of what gender they target in the womb). So claims of sexism isn't a good argument for me.

Brain, if I'm correct, your argument is the killing of human life is justified because there exists a hypothetical country where there is no welfare which might result in them starving instead if they don't get aborted?

You believe abortion is wrong? That's wonderful. Don't have one! I don't want to convince you otherwise.

The question is whether you should have the right to impose that opinion on other people who disagree with you. Access to abortion in the US is supported by a wide margin (58% to 37%):

http://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/publ ... -abortion/

So you are in a minority by a wide margin in the US. Do you really think the minority should be able to impose their will on the majority? And worldwide those who are against legal abortion are an insignificant minority (e.g. in China, India and Russia abortions are freely available). I was just watching a recent Indian movie the other day (Badhaai Ho) about a middle aged woman with adult sons getting pregnant. In the story friends and family were castigating her for NOT having an abortion!

Am I understanding that you believe that a fetus == child. Is that correct? You understand that taking this to the logical conclusion women who have an abortion gets life in prison, every miscarriage is a potential murder investigation, women get charged with child endangerment if they have alcohol while pregnant, women get institutionalized by the state if it is believed they may put the life of the fetus in danger. Is this where you would like it to go?

You say you are anti-abortion but this isn't for religious reasons? Is this correct? So you an anti-abortion atheist? "Right wing youtube" (e.g. Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro) will tell you of course that morals can't exist without Judeo-Christian values so you must be a Jew or a Christian anyway...but I digress.

From a Christian perspective (I grew up a Catholic), sex without the possibility of conception is wrong...and sex should only happen between married people. Thus this of course means gay sex is wrong, though a strict interpretation of this also means that pretty much any sex outside of the missionary position is morally wrong (e.g. oral sex, masturbation etc.). Though they de-emphasize this for now to try and broaden their support base (e.g. even the issue of sex outside marriage is de-emphasized -- as long it is not gay sex!)...but ultimately this is where they would like to take society if they have a chance.

Of course, one way to reduce abortion is to increase the availability of contraception. But most of the anti-abortion community led by the Christian churches is against that too. Again because they believe that sex is primarily about producing children...and anything else is immoral (e.g. and so we have pharmacists in the US refusing to fill prescriptions for hormonal contraception as it goes against their religious beliefs). Is this where you believe this should go to? Are you against contraception too?

My personal opinion is that until the fetus is born, the rights of the mother trump the rights of the fetus. At each stage of life you have different rights (e.g. five year olds can't drive cars) and given that the fetus is not a separate independent human being yet that can breathe on its own, it doesn't have the same rights as a human child. Whilst society can provide help and guidance to the mother whatever her choice may be, ultimately because it is her body it is her decision alone to decide what to do.

People can preach from the pulpit that if you don't want to have a baby don't have sex! But this is not reality. People, by in large, believe sex is a recreational activity or an act to show love between a couple, not just for procreation and this is unlikely to change. We need policies that deal with reality rather than some mythical perfect world which won't happen.

As a society we need to realize that people's opinions on this topic fall within a spectrum, from people that believe sex should only be within marriage and should always allow the chance of conception to those that believe abortion should not have any restrictions at all. Just like in most things, we should as a society be able to come to some reasonable compromise on this. In other countries they have been able to make a compromise. There is something wrong with the US democratic process if we can't come to a similar compromise here.

[flash2015]

Thirdly, how many millions of miscarriages are there each year? And why do the 'pro-lifers' not spend a single ounce of energy researching how to prevent or minimise these? If you truly believe a fetus is a person, then surely the millions (~40% of pregnancies) of miscarriages should be at least as important to the movement.

Again, it is not, because denying women control over their reproductive systems, shaming them for having sex, and using pregnancy as a punishment for having sex is what they actually believe in. They don't care about the child, or giving it a fair opportunity to live, they don't care that crime rates went down when abortion was introduced in the US (a 20-30 year lag for effect to follow cause...) and they don't care that easy access to abortion means every single child born is born to a parent who choose to have them.

You seem to have a vast amount of privileged information about all kinds of things pro-lifers don't care about. Now, I happen to know a few pro lifers who do care deeply about the opportunities given to children, who do care about miscarriages for that matter. I dare say there are many who don't see these things as priorities, but in my lifetime of observing humanity one thing I've noticed is that nobody on Earth holds a well thought out world view in which all aspects are consistent with each other. If that's the standard you insist on judging people by I fear every single one of us will be found wanting.

But back to the case in hand. Your problem is one of prejudice. You have created a crude caricature of pro lifers as misogynistic hypocrites who spend "not a single ounce of energy" on miscarriages and who "don't care about the child". People who are "anti-woman" and treat women as "baby making machines". You have successfully dehumanized the enemy and can no longer see them as anything other than monsters to be defeated. You have abandoned reason which I'm afraid to say makes you part of the problem.

At least in the US, the Churches and the pro-life movement align themselves strongly with the right wing and the right wing are largely against supporting the poor, which at least from my reading of the Bible and the interpretation I was given at school was a central theme of Jesus and Christianity. After coming to the US the issue of prioritizing anti-abortion activism and ignoring wealth disparity and poverty (a big thing in the US is the "prosperity gospel" - the belief that people are wealthy because they are good people, people are poor because they are immoral) was the straw which finally made me realize that people bend the Church to what they already believe...and ultimately made me realize it all just doesn't make sense anymore. I don't need the Church to help me decide what is right and wrong. I can decide it for myself. I am digressing again....

So yes, at least in the US, there is a strong case to be made that they are hypocrites. It is hypocritical to force people to have children they don't want to have because of "morals", then not support them after birth. I don't see anything wrong with orathaic's assertion here.

[Fluminator]

It’s still beside the point orathaic. You believe abortion should be allowed outside of cases of rape too. (And why shouldn’t you if you don’t think the embryo is human life worth protecting anyway.)
The pill is a newer method, but the embryo still oozes out after it dies and most abortion places even recommend you don’t look at it because it’s already big enough to recognize human characteristics.

Miscarriages are bad. Tons of progress has been made in reducing the amount of miscarriages. But that’s like saying “why don’t pro-lifers devote more energy to finding a cure for cancer since that would save even more lives.” “Why worry about Isis killing people when you could instead worry about people who die due to sicknesses.” (No, I’m not comparing pregnant women to Isis.) And as orthaic said, who are you to know what individual pro-lifers care about. You're really setting up a bogeyman that's irrelevant.

So you’re saying, the sole motive behind the pro-life movement, isn’t because they care about babies or life, it’s ONLY because they want to see women enslaved, shamed, and punished for having sex. I just still have a hard time swallowing that, especially with the amount of women who are pro-life.

I’m beginning to get the feeling one of the biggest motivations for abortion being legal is so the guys can go around sleeping around even more haphazardly and just go “well oops if I impregnate someone they can just get an abortion and do all the work to deal with it”.

Science shows that when the egg/sperm meet, there is a new identity with new DNA separate from the egg and sperm. Science shows that after that, the only thing that changes is development, size, and dependency.
Then we get outside the realm of science when we argue whether it’s okay to kill a distinct human entity that’s barely developed and how important those beings really are, but there isn't really much room for debate on when the human fetus is formed..

[Fluminator]

snip

I also believe killing is wrong. If someone told you “just don’t kill people, and let others do if they want” that’s…. not okay for that person.

I think the majority is often wrong on things. For the longest time slavery was accepted by the majority of the population, justified under the guise that the slaves weren’t fully human. I won’t be surprised if in the future, people will look back at how we justified the killing of many developing humans under the guise of “they aren’t fully human” in a similar way. (Not necessarily comparing abortions to slavery. Just that the majority opinion is often wrong)

I don’t think women who have abortions are terrible people deserving of being arrested because of the amount of misinformation out there, and how the debate is always framed. Perfectly good people will get abortions right now.

I wouldn’t consider myself an atheist, but I’m certainly not a catholic and don’t agree with most of what you say catholics believe. Contraception is a good since it stops it from happening in the first place.
However, I do have respect for the normally religious tradition to wait to have sex until after marriage partly to protect babies from being formed in tricky situations.
Not having sex isn’t really that hard if you believe it might cause the death of human life.

So your opinion is the fetus can start having rights once it can breathe on its own? Not judging, just want to clarify your position.

[Octavious]

My personal opinion is that until the fetus is born, the rights of the mother trump the rights of the fetus. At each stage of life you have different rights (e.g. five year olds can't drive cars) and given that the fetus is not a separate independent human being yet that can breathe on its own, it doesn't have the same rights as a human child. Whilst society can provide help and guidance to the mother whatever her choice may be, ultimately because it is her body it is her decision alone to decide what to do.

This position, whilst one I disagree with, is the only pro-choice position that is consistent with the idea of giving women control over their bodies. The state advises, and the woman makes the call. Positions, such as the one adopted by Ireland, that place time limits on abortions keep the control in the hands of the society in the form of the state. People in favour of such systems, and I include myself amongst them, are in no position to accuse pro-lifers of being anti-woman as we support the exact same controls over the women, only disagreeing on the timing of when the controls are activated.

The problem with stance flash has taken is that there is negligible difference between a new born baby and the same baby a day before birth. Indeed, modern medicine often delays a birth or accelerates it for multiple reasons, so often the difference is purely the call of a midwife or doctor on a particular day.

It is clear to me, therefore, that the abortion of a late stage pregnancy should be treated with the same gravity as the killing of a new born baby. I can think of no logical path to avoid such a conclusion.