Abortion: The Thread

[Dece1t]

There was very little wrong with what Deck Knight is pointing out. It is pretty deplorable that y'all are seriously tolerating the killing of babies let alone when they're already born. I think it's very fairy to compare 21 weeks of premies being saved and being labeled as babies and 24 week old babies being aborted are simply fetuses. Go ahead, defend why those two things are somehow different. There's some serious hypocrisy and fallacy in this viewpoint, and I'd love to hear why this makes any logical sense that we're able to change the labels simply when we feel its convenient to. He's also very right that the support for abortion has become archaic, from "safe, legal, and rare," to "abortions anytime, anyplace, God bless abortions and God bless America." It's becoming a full-fledged support for literal infanticide and chopping up babies as late as straight before birth on the operating table. All of this, let alone the fact that as Deck Knight continued to point out, some states are bulldozing parental rights on the issue by letting minors get abortions without considering the rights of the parents. That's fair game to crititcize.

i dont rly see what the moral difference is between successfully aborting a fetus immediately or having it be briefly alive outside the womb by accident and then letting it die, especially considering anti-abortionists already consider successful abortions to be infanticide. anyway cool that u hate women or whatever, im sure ur proud of urself

Because it's a living, breathing, crying baby that's able to be saved. To those that are touting the sentience argument, by your own standards is that not sentient? Much of the shit you guys have been spouting out is that it's not a baby until its born. Anything before that point is a fetus. My question I'd like to pose is: is that truly your cut-off to determine babyhood from being a fetus? Personhood is determined by whether the baby passed through the vagina or not? I know termi you in particular pushed sentience as the point of life itself (which y'all have yet to back up other than differentiating being brain dead from being in a coma, once again fair my bad for misunderstanding), but where exactly is the limit for you people to where it is officially a baby and cannot be killed? So far its been up until birth for many of you, even though at 5 weeks a heartbeat and a development of brain function. In addition, you've yet to prove regardless of sentience, why it should be killed off if basic science tells us and has shown us that, if left to its own devices in the womb (for people that cannot discern any semblance of logic) will 99 out of 100 times develop into a full-fledged baby? (Other than convenience because the mother cannot provide a life for it/does not want it, we've already discussed rape/incest/the mother's life is in danger. Convenience is a shit argument that does not determine livelihood).

This is the most misogynistic statement I've ever read. You know that women are capable of having autonomy, right? They can choose not to have an abortion if they don't want one. Even 15 year old girls have autonomy and can choose not to have an abortion. If they want one then I'm glad that, in your scenario where the woman is only a teenager, they're not having to pay for it themselves. The narrative that men can command women into abortions ("take care of it") is only true in abusive relationships, which no child deserves to be born into.

There's also no causation between abortion being legal and rape victims not reporting the crimes that they're a victim of. If anything, it's the inverse. Perhaps if we empowered women by giving them autonomy over their bodies they would feel more capable of reporting their victimhood and getting your hypothetical perpetrator thrown in jail. And perhaps limiting women's autonomy socialises them into an otherhood that makes them feel lesser, and therefore more liable to be preyed upon by people such as your hypothetical rapist.

Your statement characterises women as obsequious baby factories and that's utterly revolting. If I were one of the legislators you were speaking to, I would have had you thrown out.

You're right that woman are completely entitled to autonomy....until you learn actual biology and realize a fetus is not a woman's body. As stated before, this is an entity with a completely different DNA code for starters. Unless all of the sudden women have 20 fingers and toes, 4 sets of eyes, and an extra set of ears, that is not the woman's body, and deceiving people into believing that blatant fiction is incredibly dishonest. No one here has yet to discern how a fetus is all the sudden a part of the women's body with all of that being considered.

Additionally, there's is nothing okay with women feeling empowered because they killed a baby--if anything, a vast majority of women that have abortions tend come to some sort of hurt prior and following the procedure, because they deep down understand the value of what they just killed off. It's traumatic, and if anything, it makes the hurt of rape much worse because now two lives have been destroyed, not just one. Nowhere did Deck Knight equate women to baby-pumping factories either, you're creating fuss out of thin air. Once again, we're under the premise that babies should not be killed; it has nothing to do with controlling women, it has everything to do with saving lives.

Edit: I want to cover the rape scenario because this is also a point of contention, and there's more I want to respond to from Celever. Thank God for our law system right? Because the woman would be compensated for the expenses and thensome for emotional distress through criminal/civil lawsuits (for the sake of argument abortions/the baby's needs if kept alive), which can be taken up by the state. (And before someone says well what about those that are too scared to/are pressured not to, have you heard of saving the time, date, place of where an incident occurred? That would be a good start when stepping up to law enforcement who can protect you, on top of that fact that now you'd have biological DNA evidence from the baby to prove it. Isn't that what y'all wanted from #MeToo? Defending women and giving them the courage to put their abusers to justice?) I feel you on abusive relationships too, no baby deserves to live through that. So it's any better that they're killed off? Or it's not good enough for it to be adopted out to a loving family either? Two wrongs don't make a right.

 

[Stealthbomber16]

First of all props for you for posting your controversial opinion against the grain. This is clearly something that you have thought about extensive and I respect that, and I respect you for posting your thoughts when they are different than the common one in this thread.

For me what I dislike about your argument is the fact that it doesn’t seem to represent the point of view of the woman. The argument about 21 week premie vs 24 week fetus is fine on paper until you go a little deeper. That 24 week baby (we will call it that for the sake of being in the same page) was not wanted and that 21 week baby was. I have an extended family member who had a c-section 9 weeks early to not have a complicated birth. The differences here are
1. Will that baby have any place in its household? Will it be welcomed and loved by its parents?
2. Is that baby wanted?

the disconnect that you are not understanding FMPOV is that we are stating that forcing a mother to grow a child inside of her body that is not welcomed there and has no place with his/her parents IS forcing that woman to do something. That is making that woman have less power. She has no say over an intruder inside of her own body. That would feel extremely demoralizing. You’re right, a fetus is not a woman’s body. But it is taking her body’s resources. If that woman doesn’t wish to have her resources taken by this child, then what options does she have?

The other piece that I never see pro-life individuals talk about is about after the child is born. What do we do with these excess babies? The adoption system is already overflowing with children. How do we handle all of these extra infants? Where do we keep them? Who do we give them to?

I think that your post comes from a very selfish place of mind, but I do see where it is coming from. This is not a topic that lends well to cynicism. You want to save lives but how about all of these lives you’re hurting in the process? Just for the validation that you saved the life of a baby that you will never interact with again, that gets put into an adoption system which, in your world, is overflowing with increasingly high amounts of neglected children who can’t fend for themselves?

I do think that women who get multiple abortions because they were not trying to take the multiple available contraceptive steps prior are a different story. That to me is fucking stupid and ridiculous and we can definitely agree on that.

 

[Dece1t]

First of all props for you for posting your controversial opinion against the grain. This is clearly something that you have thought about extensive and I respect that, and I respect you for posting your thoughts when they are different than the common one in this thread.

For me what I dislike about your argument is the fact that it doesn’t seem to represent the point of view of the woman. The argument about 21 week premie vs 24 week fetus is fine on paper until you go a little deeper. That 24 week baby (we will call it that for the sake of being in the same page) was not wanted and that 21 week baby was. I have an extended family member who had a c-section 9 weeks early to not have a complicated birth. The differences here are
1. Will that baby have any place in its household? Will it be welcomed and loved by its parents?
2. Is that baby wanted?

the disconnect that you are not understanding FMPOV is that we are stating that forcing a mother to grow a child inside of her body that is not welcomed there and has no place with his/her parents IS forcing that woman to do something. That is making that woman have less power. She has no say over an intruder inside of her own body. That would feel extremely demoralizing. You’re right, a fetus is not a woman’s body. But it is taking her body’s resources. If that woman doesn’t wish to have her resources taken by this child, then what options does she have?

The other piece that I never see pro-life individuals talk about is about after the child is born. What do we do with these excess babies? The adoption system is already overflowing with children. How do we handle all of these extra infants? Where do we keep them? Who do we give them to?

I think that your post comes from a very selfish place of mind, but I do see where it is coming from. This is not a topic that lends well to cynicism. You want to save lives but how about all of these lives you’re hurting in the process? Just for the validation that you saved the life of a baby that you will never interact with again, that gets put into an adoption system which, in your world, is overflowing with increasingly high amounts of neglected children who can’t fend for themselves?

I appreciate the sentiment, sure I'll bite. Firstly, I want to clarify my viewpoint is not misrepresenting the POV of the woman, if anything, in the very beginning of this thread I made explicit that I am completely for contraceptives, and that I believe women do still have choice (3 to be exact): adoption, birth control, or abstinence. In the end, it's about being responsible, none of those options put a baby's life on the line. In addition, when you ask whether the baby is wanted/welcomed to loving parents or not, that goes back to the convenience argument I just gave. Convenience does not constitute livelihood, and in my opinion you have no right to rip someone else's life away for especially for the sake of "well, I don't want it." It does not hold up well on neither a moral or objective level.

To continue addressing your latter paragraphs, how is a baby an intruder? You choose to have sex or not (except in the case of rape, which where I do believe the baby is still definitely a human life, the woman did not have control and I gave credence to that argument; noting though rape only makes about 1% of all abortion cases and it should not be a say-all to all abortion circumstances), and when you have sex, you do run the risk of producing a baby if you're not careful. A baby doesn't just magically pop into the womb out of random and decide to suck off the woman. Everyone who has taken basic sex ed is aware of this indisputable fact that biology says sex=possibility of baby. The purpose of sex is for procreation. Unless you decide to be practice abstinence until your ready to have children, even with the incredibly significant sliming of risk from birth control, there will always be a chance to become pregnant. The baby should not be paying the price for it, that is the woman's fault. If the ability to kill babies is power to you, sorry we are not going to find any common ground there, that's pretty disgusting no offense.

With the baby's life after being born, once agin that should not dictate someone having the decision to take someone else's life. I'd rather give someone the chance to make something of their lives than kill them. I'd rather be given the option to be adopted if my family could not provide for me. But you are right, the foster/adoption system is overflowing right now, I don't deny that the system needs fixing. How about focusing on fixing that than resorting to killing babies? Perhaps making the process of applying as foster/prospective adoptive parents easier that way there's more people able to take children in. What about the work of charity, or even churches/other religious institutions and the roles they can play? It simply goes down to "Why is it right for me to kill someone else at all? Who said that should be my say to dictate the lives of others as to whether I decide they stay alive and grow or be killed?" (Assisted Suicide, however, where the person is the one making the decision to kill themselves, is a pretty interesting topic that I'd be willing to delve into).

I do think that women who get multiple abortions because they were not trying to take the multiple available contraceptive steps prior are a different story. That to me is fucking stupid and ridiculous and we can definitely agree on that.

Oh 100%. Contraceptives are unbelievably available nowadays. I can go to my local Wawa and get a pack of condoms for $5. Some universities provide free birth control as well. IUDs can sometimes be covered by insurance. It's a matter of not being lazy, take advantage of the resources widely available to you if you want to have sex.

 

[BKC]

so women should be forced to go through nine months of pregnancy, childbirth and deal with the lasting effects those have on their bodies and lives because "it's the woman's fault" for having sex without wanting a baby and the needs of unborn children are more important. good lord.

 

[Dece1t]

so women should be forced to go through nine months of pregnancy, childbirth and deal with the lasting effects those have on their bodies because "it's the woman's fault" for having sex without wanting a baby and the needs of unborn children are more important. good lord.

Absolutely. If you don't want to have a baby, don't have sex or opt to use birth control/contraceptives (or in general if you're going to have sex, be smart about it, and once again I already covered rape). Defending the right to kill someone else does not make you more morally righteous, quite the opposite actually.

I do think the needs of unborn children should be considered because we all were once unborn children, and we could've been in that situation. Pretty selfish in my opinion to equate otherwise.

 

[BKC]

I assumed birth control was a given and was referring more to the rare instances in which it fails. if your solution in this scenario is to force women to go through the incredible ordeal of pregnancy, then you're trying to control women's bodies, both with this and by telling them to not have sex if they want to avoid it, which I think is worse than getting rid of what's basically a non-entity. you may as well make any sort of non-procreational male ejaculation illegal because that could've been a person too. humans are sexual beings and shouldn't have to repress that part of themselves for fear of having their lives essentially ruined. caring more for the unborn than the living seems pretty backwards.

 

[Stealthbomber16]

I guess our POVs differ based on our views of sex. It can be a reproductive activity but most people see it as a recreational activity. I don’t enjoy sex because of the possibility I can have a child, I enjoy it because it feels good goddamnit.

Abortion is more complex than just “well use a condom idiot”. There are instances where condoms fail or break. Where I live, birth control is not available to people below 18, which is not the age of consent in most states.

I also don’t think that giving your baby to a church is a solution.

 

[Dece1t]

I assumed birth control was a given and was referring more to the rare instances in which it fails. if your solution in this scenario is to force women to go through the incredible ordeal of pregnancy, then you're trying to control women's bodies, both with this and by telling them to not have sex if they want to avoid it, which I think is worse than getting rid of what's basically a non-entity. you may as well make any sort of non-procreational male ejaculation illegal because that could've been a person too. humans are sexual beings and shouldn't have to repress that part of themselves for fear of having their lives essentially ruined. caring more for the unborn than the living seems pretty backwards.

Bro, once again, no one wants to control women's bodies. The baby is not the body of a woman, firstly, but secondly, YOU have the choice to have sex, YOU decide whether to use any form of birth control or not, YOU decide how to deal with the consequences of it if something goes wrong. I do not care if a woman has sex however they please, that is not my business nor do I give any shit what other people do in their personal lives. My only point of contention is plainly if another human life if produced, you have no right to kill it. That is your fault knowing fully well the risks of sex and the fact that it can create a baby.

As for the sperm point, I mean you're free to read back in the thread at any time because clearly you haven't prior to contributing to the discussion. I've addressed this before and I'll do it again: a human baby is the combination of a human sperm and a human egg. Sperm alone are human sperm, not a human fetus with the potential of developing into a fully-fledged baby. A zygote, however, does have that high likelihood. I should not have to differentiate this, that is so stupid, and I'd like to think we're all smarter than that. If you're going to the farthest reaches like that to defend your argument, you're officially out of ammo, you're done.

I guess our POVs differ based on our views of sex. It can be a reproductive activity but most people see it as a recreational activity. I don’t enjoy sex because of the possibility I can have a child, I enjoy it because it feels good goddamnit.

Abortion is more complex than just “well use a condom idiot”. There are instances where condoms fail or break. Where I live, birth control is not available to people below 18, which is not the age of consent in most states.

I also don’t think that giving your baby to a church is a solution.

I get your point man, but I want to bridge the gap. You can have sex either for the personal purpose of procreation or for recreation. As I stated above, I do not care what people do in their sex lives once so ever, I don't give a shit. However, no matter what, you cannot change the absolute fact that when having sex, you will always run some form of risk of creating a baby. That's why procreation is the main biological function. That's the bottom line, and spinning the purpose of it does not change that absolute fact. Condoms can break as you said, and birth control pills/an IUD may not stop a zygote from attaching itself. Those examples do significantly decrease the chances of a life being created, at times upwards of close to a 99% prevention rate, however that does not mitigate the fact that some form a chance, no matter how small, is still there. It's a matter of acknowledging the risk and making the decision as to whether its worth it or not.

For the places that don't have birth control widely available, yea I think it makes total sense that a state can rule whether parents need to consent or not. That's in parental rights of their kids, and the government is not their parents. If a parent doesn't want their kid having sex for whatever reason you can think of, oh well, they can wait until they're an adult so that you can overrule their say and have access to purchasing that stuff on your own. When you're an adult, legally you can do just about whatever the hell you want. I'm not against birth control, quite the opposite actually, however I do think in those states parents do have a say in whether they're okay with their children having sex or not.

Finally, I think you misunderstood my church point. I did not necessarily mean physically giving a baby to the church for it to be cared for. I compared it like a charity in that many churches will provide to needing families, and church communities can help provide/give the necessities to the parent that they need to take good care of the baby and have its needs met.

Edit: BKC Babies are now non-entities if you deem you don't want them, with the snap of your fingers? One, where's the consistency with babies created intentionally, but two, LOL, wow that is unbelievably low. That is pathetic, and here you are lecturing me that not letting woman kill babies is immoral. Imagine if that baby was you, should I assume you're a non-entity because you weren't born yet? I would hope to God absolutely not, that is downright disgraceful coming from the people that are touting they're defending the rights of the underprivileged, POC, and the fairness, equality, and rights for all in general. That's some heavy irony overdose. You know you have issues when you say that and throw those rights out for babies (and Israeli's according to thought leaders like Ilhan Omar, Linda Sarsour, Rashida Thalib, I think it's safe to assume you amongst the majority of y'all support them. That's another discussion but I think its entirely fair game to point that out). When you begin to dehumanize a subgroup, that's how you let history repeat itself and normalize the killing of innocent people, much like with slaves and Jews (in reference to the Holocaust). Notions that you put out like that are incredibly immoral and sickening, and that does not make you to any extent morally virtuous or righteous.

 

[earl]

I'm 100% for women being treated equally to men, as with babies being treated equally as men and women since I also consider them as people.

This is the heart of the debate- There can't be equal treatment ensured for both women and fetuses simultaneously (barring orch's incubation tube future), as siding with pro-life or pro-choice will cause one of those groups to treated unequally compared to men. Just depends on which is more important, I guess. I know that the "babies", being free of sin and cute and all, are quite hard to resist here compared to living people who can be blamed for having sex or whatever, but I personally believe there's not much difference in a fetus and some cum in a tissue in terms of human potential (neither are a human currently). To each their own.

 

[Dece1t]

This is the heart of the debate- There can't be equal treatment ensured for both women and fetuses simultaneously (barring orch's incubation tube future), as siding with pro-life or pro-choice will cause one of those groups to treated unequally compared to men. Just depends on which is more important, I guess. I know that the "babies", being free of sin and cute and all, are quite hard to resist here compared to living people who can be blamed for having sex or whatever, but I personally believe there's not much difference in a fetus and some cum in a tissue in terms of human potential (neither are a human currently). To each their own.

Allowing women to kill their babies is what you equate to equal treatment? I'm not following. I'll leave the fetus to cum in a tissue comparison alone for now, but would you mind elaborating why thats the case? I feel like we can get some genuine discussion and maybe some common ground out of it.

 

[earl]

Allowing women to kill their babies is what you equate to equal treatment? I'm not following. I'll leave the fetus to cum in a tissue comparison alone for now, but would you mind elaborating why thats the case? I feel like we can get some genuine discussion and maybe some common ground out of it.

Note the "babies"- I don't believe a fetus to be equal to an independent, living breathing human life. This entire thread is a minefield of loaded terminology.
I'd rather focus on enhancing what is rather than what could be (not to mention we already have problems supporting our existing population, I'd rather ensure existing lives can get what they need to survive rather than add even more dependents to the equation, but I guess it's easy enough to say "mission achieved" once that baby is out of the womb). I can respect the pro-life angle, I just don't believe it's a rock solid view completely grounded in science, and is mainly based in the fact that the easiest group to advocate for is the unborn, as policies regarding it are virtually cost-free compared to caring for children, the poor, the sick, etc. And it's not hard to convince people that abortion is the most pressing problem facing the US when you can phrase it as baby murder. I think it should be treated more as a personal decision, because illegal abortion still occurs frequently in places with abortion outlawed and that's a significantly uglier sight.

As for the equal treatment bit, yes women are treated unfairly compared to men if they are forced to carry an unwanted child to term. Men do not have to do this in the case of an unexpected pregnancy.

 

[Dece1t]

Note the "babies"- I don't believe a fetus to be equal to an independent, living breathing human life. This entire thread is a minefield of loaded terminology.
I'd rather focus on enhancing what is rather than what could be (not to mention we already have problems supporting our existing population, I'd rather ensure existing lives can get what they need to survive rather than add even more dependents to the equation, but I guess it's easy enough to say "mission achieved" once that baby is out of the womb). I can respect the pro-life angle, I just don't believe it's a rock solid view completely grounded in science, and is mainly based in the fact that the easiest group to advocate for is the unborn, as policies regarding it are virtually cost-free compared to caring for children, the poor, the sick, etc. And it's not hard to convince people that abortion is the most pressing problem facing the US when you can phrase it as baby murder. I think it should be treated more as a personal decision, because illegal abortion still occurs frequently in places with abortion outlawed and that's a significantly uglier sight.

Firstly, who said the unborn and the poor/sick are mutually exclusive? Why can't we focus on bettering the lives of all 3? Genuinely, I do completely get your concern, there are some pro-lifers that may genuinely not think about what happens to the baby afterwards, that's fair and I'm happy to address it. However, just because we may have a different solution for how to better the lives of all does not mean we have legit concern. I think the debate needs to come with the pro's and con's of proposed solutions, not which one is most virtuous. I'd like to think our hearts are all in the same place there, we both care.

Secondly, I'm not understanding why you believe the pro-life view isn't grounded in science. Many of my posts in this thread have given a nod to basic biology, but hey you tell me where the pro-life view isn't scientific. I'll listen and give my criticism.

Lastly, going onto your baby murder point, do you think the repealing of Roe v. Wade would lead to barbaric, uglier sights for abortions? For starters, I don't see scientific advancements to the procedures going backwards, however, you understand that repealing the landmark case would theoretically still allow places like California and New York to keep its up-until-birth abortion policies, right? We would either need a federal law that explicitly limits abortion, or (what I think is most likely because states can and have found constitutional loopholes, and this will likely be settled in court in a big circle), we would need a constitutional amendment finalizing the definition of what life is (which I personally do not see attaining a 2/3s majority in both congresses, on top of being ratified by 38 states). With that said, if you don't like the pro-life policies of Georgia, you are free to move to a state that believes otherwise. However, it does come down to state sovereignty, because as of right now, abortions are not mentioned in the US Constitution. Anything not worded in tends to imply state discretion of such laws.

Edit:

As for the equal treatment bit, yes women are treated unfairly compared to men if they are forced to carry an unwanted child to term. Men do not have to do this in the case of an unexpected pregnancy.

Going back on topic of woman's inequality to men, okay, but that goes back to the choice of risking the production of a baby or not. It's also worth noting that women and men are inherently different (and in our case, that women are the ones that incubate babies and men do not), however that doesn't mean they aren't afforded the same rights as men or anyone else, or that they're inferior let alone. Men should be held just as accountable if a woman becomes pregnant, because that's the man's child as well and he had a role creating it. That's is why for rape, these men are often punished harshly (and I completely support harsh punishment for rape offenders, such as castration and long time in solitary confinement), and if a man refuses to be a part of the baby's life, that is why there is an enforcement of child support. There are cases where yea, there is an abandoning of responsibility and men are not held accountable. I would completely agree, that's a serious issue. However, the woman has the rights through the court and through DNA testing to force it, surprisingly it's not that easy for men to simply run away if the woman is on top of their shit.

 

[earl]

Firstly, who said the unborn and the poor/sick are mutually exclusive? Why can't we focus on bettering the lives of all 3? Genuinely, I do completely get your concern, there are some pro-lifers that may genuinely not think about what happens to the baby afterwards, that's fair and I'm happy to address it. However, just because we may have a different solution for how to better the lives of all does not mean we have legit concern. I think the debate needs to come with the pro's and con's of proposed solutions, not which one is most virtuous. I'd like to think our hearts are all in the same place there, we both care.

Fair enough, I just believe the typical party views of pro-life vs pro-choice typically lean towards (as I view it) conservative policies which don't exactly enrich the lives of the poor and sick sides of society, with stuff such as private healthcare. But that's not for this thread.

Secondly, I'm not understanding why you believe the pro-life view isn't grounded in science. Many of my posts in this thread have given a nod to basic biology, but hey you tell me where the pro-life view isn't scientific. I'll listen and give my criticism.

Completely grounded in science. The claim cannot be made that an unborn fetus, incapable of surviving outside the human body, is the equivalent of a baby. Like neither side is entirely scientifically accurate, there's no true (as far as I know) scientific consensus on whether or not a fetus qualifies as a human in all regards.

if you don't like the pro-life policies of Georgia, you are free to move to a state that believes otherwise.

haha fuck poor people amirite

 

[Dece1t]

Fair enough, I just believe the typical party views of pro-life vs pro-choice typically lean towards (as I view it) conservative policies which don't exactly enrich the lives of the poor and sick sides of society, with stuff such as private healthcare. But that's not for this thread.

Once again, this comes down to political bias. I'll repeat, just because we have different solutions does not mean they don't work to some extent/we don't care. I'm gonna extend on that a bit later.

Completely grounded in science. The claim cannot be made that an unborn fetus, incapable of surviving outside the human body, is the equivalent of a baby. Like neither side is entirely scientifically accurate, there's no true (as far as I know) scientific consensus on whether or not a fetus qualifies as a human in all regards.

Fair I suppose, I do get it even though I'm not sure if I fully agree with that assertion, but just because it can't live outside the womb or in an oxygen tank/baby life support does not necessarily disprove that it's okay to kill it (let alone out of convenience). Once again it still has the incredibly high likelihood of developing into a fully-fledged human being.

haha fuck poor people amirite

No not really. The very conservative policies you bashed previously now produced the lowest unemployment rate across the board (even for minorities) in decades if not in history alongside staggering job production. I think that would be reasonable to say you have better access to a job, you're less likely to be in extreme poverty. Granted, I do not think it is humanly possibly to eliminate poverty across the board (no matter what you do, even centralizing the government; that's what we got from communist Russia and China, and Socialist Venezuela), however I'd much prefer the solution that caters to the best results. In my opinion, lessening regulation on business and allowing the competition of the free market is that answer. Capitalism has lifted so many people and nations out of poverty its not even funny. It's an ingenious and clever solution--if you're someone that sees humanity as innately greedy, let it work for good. Let people have the incentive to work hard and get ahead for materialistic pleasures. At that same token, let those same people the same opportunity to give back through charity. Usually these things leads to tax incentives.

Anyways, if someone in poverty manages to get a job, yes you'll need to look ahead for a new job before relocating, that's the smart way to go, however it is absolutely not an impossible prospect to relocate if you're poor and you do not like your states abortion policies (to give some credence to your inquiry). It does, however, involve some semblance of establishing good saving/investing habits (the latter option of which is not a requirement, but it does help more than it does not).

 

[BKC]

When you begin to dehumanize a subgroup, that's how you let history repeat itself and normalize the killing of innocent people, much like with slaves and Jews (in reference to the Holocaust). Notions that you put out like that are incredibly immoral and sickening, and that does not make you to any extent morally virtuous or righteous.

I wish I could express in words the contempt I have for you equating abortion to slavery and the Holocaust.

 

[fanyfan]

I want to dive into some stuff here.

Completely grounded in science. The claim cannot be made that an unborn fetus, incapable of surviving outside the human body, is the equivalent of a baby. Like neither side is entirely scientifically accurate, there's no true (as far as I know) scientific consensus on whether or not a fetus qualifies as a human in all regards.

So there are some things science can tell us. It can tell us, for example, that a fetus cannot survive outside of a mother’s womb. It also can tell us that generally, if everything goes well, that fetus will eventually become what we can all agree is a human.

However, science can’t tell us what life is. Science can’t tell us at what point (semen and unfertilized, zygote, fetus, etc) it becomes life and at what point we should be trying to protect it. These are philosophical moral judgements. I can say that a fetus doesn’t have moral worth until it’s born, someone else can say life begins at conception and literally any abortion is murder. These are personal moral judgements that we are probably not going to all agree on in society, at least anytime soon. This is what makes the abortion debate tricky since at the end of the day it’s my personal idea of what life is versus yours. Now we can use science to back up our beliefs, (for example, using the fact that a fetus can’t survive outside the womb to say that it has less moral worth) but this isn’t a scientific debate.

I’m not really trying to attack or whatever the quoted post. I was more using it as a jumping off point to say that the debate over whether a fetus is a life is mostly useless. Many people have very different ideas of what life is and where it begins and such and I don’t think most people are going to change their minds on this issue.

So if that debate isn’t helpful, what should we look at when considering abortion? Well, I tend to look at it in terms of what effect it has on society. The effect of people being able to get an abortion seems to be positive. It enables people to have less unwanted children, which leads to less people being raised in unstable households where the outcomes tend to be worse. It also leads to women having more personal freedom and bodily autonomy. It also leads to safer abortions being performed, since coat hanger abortions are clearly not as safe as a medical professional doing it. This is why I am pro-choice. I like when things have a positive impact on society. However, I don’t have a problem with pro-life people as long as they’re not trying to force others to adhere to their personal moral standard of life with abortion restrictions and the like.

(ps if you want to reduce the number of abortions, you should be supporting Planned Parenthood since the more access to the services they provide, like contraception for example, will help bring down the number of abortions)

 

[Myzozoa]

I want to dive into some stuff here.

So there are some things science can tell us. It can tell us, for example, that a fetus cannot survive outside of a mother’s womb. It also can tell us that generally, if everything goes well, that fetus will eventually become what we can all agree is a human.

However, science can’t tell us what life is. Science can’t tell us at what point (semen and unfertilized, zygote, fetus, etc) it becomes life and at what point we should be trying to protect it. These are philosophical moral judgements. I can say that a fetus doesn’t have moral worth until it’s born, someone else can say life begins at conception and literally any abortion is murder. These are personal moral judgements that we are probably not going to all agree on in society, at least anytime soon. This is what makes the abortion debate tricky since at the end of the day it’s my personal idea of what life is versus yours. Now we can use science to back up our beliefs, (for example, using the fact that a fetus can’t survive outside the womb to say that it has less moral worth) but this isn’t a scientific debate.

The main goal for all philosophy imo is to be grounded in science. That is where the practice of philosophy guides us in how to live well. Although science changes overtime, philosophy still wants to be in a dialogue with the best possible science and evidence. The central tenet of philosophy is that we should live well and science gives us access to the tools we need to actually live well. This just moves the point of the discourse itt to a different site. For example, when deceit talks abt how great the economy is even though real wages haven't risen in idk how many decades you can say his philosophy is not in a good way, he doesn't seem to be interested in measuring how well people are living. I actually think there is not much value in shifting the point of the discussion in this way where science is elided. To the contrary, science gets us right to the heart of the discourse itt, anti-abortion advocacy is about controlling women's bodies and making them go through an objectively frequently harmful ordeal. These forced birth extremists are uninterested in womens' medical and economic well-being and believe in a strict biological destiny that cares little about anyone living well and slights the advancements of science in freeing people from their biological destinies.

At the same time as you say that this isn't a scientific discussion aren't you also relegating this discussion to a matter of opinion on the minutia of what life is and where it begins and what the role of intentionality is? Ask yourself: do anti-abortion advocates really lack a sound perspective in such matters as the application of the label and valuing of 'human life' or is the real 'metaphysical quandery' here not actually women's rights? You might want to say that, since the anti-abortion position is frequently accompanied by advocacy for unproven conservative economic/political claims it seems that anti-abortion advocates do not have a good perspective on the valuing of human life, but imo they central thing about anti-abortion advocates is they aren't comfortable with gender equality. All our beliefs are like opinions, but when we say they're opinions it seems that we're minorizing their importance and the importance of having beliefs/opinions that are grounded in substantial evidence.

 

[Dece1t]

I wish I could express in words the contempt I have for you equating abortion to slavery and the Holocaust.

Deaths from the Holocaust: 6 Million Jews and 11 million others

Total Amount of Slaves in the United States in 1860: Nearly 4 Million

Total Abortions Performed in 2016 Alone Reported to CDC (the most recent public stat): 623,471 (or roughly 186 babies aborted per every 1,000 births; not counting stats from California, Maryland, New Hampshire, and Washington DC as they did not report that year)

Total Abortions Performed since 1973: ~62 million

I would like to think we're smart here in knowing had a vast majority of these fetuses not been aborted, they would've had an incredibly high likelihood of developing into fully-fledged human beings. 62 million is an absurdly high number of people whose lives have been ripped away because of people like you normalizing of killing innocent people by lying to the public that fetuses are not lives. This is what many in the United States did with the lives of Blacks, because they were deemed sub-human. This is what Hitler and the German Reich did with the Jews and anyone not the 'Aryan master race" through eugenics, because they were deemed sub-human. Now we're doing it to babies under the umbrella that it's women's rights and that humans at a largely unspecified stage of development are simply fetuses and are non-entities. In turn, many of you have labeled them as sub-human.

This is an epidemic. You are not a virtuous moral arbiter for defending the ripping of these lives up until birth, so don't even dare act like it. If you were honest, you'd swallow your pride and at least concede what abortion scientifically is.

 

[Luck O' the Irish]

Don’t really know how to begin but I don’t know how you can continuously conflate abortion with literal genocide. If you want to define a fetus as being the same with a born person, fine. I don’t have anything to argue because what we define is life is not a scientific definition. Imo, it is almost purely philosophical. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with thinking abortion is morally wrong since I can understand why someone would believe that life begins at conception. What I can’t wrap my head around is how you continue to post like it is a proven fact that abortion is not only murder, but actual genocide. Aside from how problematic it is to make this comparison in my eyes, do you genuinely think this many Americans are willing participants to the most massive genocide in history? Cause if that’s the case I feel like if I were in your shoes I’d be doing something way more drastic than posting on a Pokémon website sub forum about it.

I’m doing my best to make this an assume good intentions post but I honestly don’t know what to make of this

Edit: don’t feel like quoting that since yes I can read. Potential to being something =/ actually being something. Don’t know what else to say about that

 

[Dece1t]

Don’t really know how to begin but I don’t know how you can continuously conflate abortion with literal genocide. If you want to define a fetus as being the same with a born person, fine. I don’t have anything to argue because what we define is life is not a scientific definition. Imo, it is almost purely philosophical. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with thinking abortion is morally wrong since I can understand why someone would believe that life begins at conception. What I can’t wrap my head around is how you continue to post like it is a proven fact that abortion is not only murder, but actual genocide. Aside from how problematic it is to make this comparison in my eyes, do you genuinely think this many Americans are willing participants to the most massive genocide in history? Cause if that’s the case I feel like if I were in your shoes I’d be doing something way more drastic than posting on a Pokémon website sub forum about it.

I’m doing my best to make this an assume good intentions post but I honestly don’t know what to make of this

Read: "I would like to think we're smart here in knowing had a vast majority of these fetuses had not been aborted, they would've had an incredibly high likelihood of developing into fully-fledged human beings."

Edit:

don’t feel like quoting that since yes I can read. Potential to being something =/ actually being something. Don’t know what else to say about that

It comes down to how often is that likelihood. Mayo Clinic estimates 10-20% of pregnancies tend end in miscarriages. Highballing that rate, 80% are born to full term. That's pretty reliable, as our current human population would show us, unlike 100+ years ago when mothers could die from giving birth let alone the babies surviving before and through infancy and up through childhood. I would like to say those odds are much more than reasonable enough to say that we can safely assume fetuses will develop fully. That would largely debunk your potential-to-actuality point.

Hide

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases...loss-miscarriage/symptoms-causes/syc-20354298

 

[Dece1t]

I want to dive into some stuff here.

So there are some things science can tell us. It can tell us, for example, that a fetus cannot survive outside of a mother’s womb. It also can tell us that generally, if everything goes well, that fetus will eventually become what we can all agree is a human.

However, science can’t tell us what life is. Science can’t tell us at what point (semen and unfertilized, zygote, fetus, etc) it becomes life and at what point we should be trying to protect it. These are philosophical moral judgements. I can say that a fetus doesn’t have moral worth until it’s born, someone else can say life begins at conception and literally any abortion is murder. These are personal moral judgements that we are probably not going to all agree on in society, at least anytime soon. This is what makes the abortion debate tricky since at the end of the day it’s my personal idea of what life is versus yours. Now we can use science to back up our beliefs, (for example, using the fact that a fetus can’t survive outside the womb to say that it has less moral worth) but this isn’t a scientific debate.

I’m not really trying to attack or whatever the quoted post. I was more using it as a jumping off point to say that the debate over whether a fetus is a life is mostly useless. Many people have very different ideas of what life is and where it begins and such and I don’t think most people are going to change their minds on this issue.

So if that debate isn’t helpful, what should we look at when considering abortion? Well, I tend to look at it in terms of what effect it has on society. The effect of people being able to get an abortion seems to be positive. It enables people to have less unwanted children, which leads to less people being raised in unstable households where the outcomes tend to be worse. It also leads to women having more personal freedom and bodily autonomy. It also leads to safer abortions being performed, since coat hanger abortions are clearly not as safe as a medical professional doing it. This is why I am pro-choice. I like when things have a positive impact on society. However, I don’t have a problem with pro-life people as long as they’re not trying to force others to adhere to their personal moral standard of life with abortion restrictions and the like.

(ps if you want to reduce the number of abortions, you should be supporting Planned Parenthood since the more access to the services they provide, like contraception for example, will help bring down the number of abortions)

I don't love double posting, but I want to largely address the bold without making another edit on my previous remarks. I respect the 2nd paragraph primarily because I think that is a very fair-minded view about the issue (ignoring what I said about lively potential for a moment, because that's more or less one step passed that argument). I'm not gonna touch on the rest because, to be frank, I'm not up to repeating points I've already put out here.

However, I do not support Planned Parenthood. I do not like financially supporting an organization that performs abortions and really any procedure meant to lead up to an abortion. I also do not like an organization that has been pushing for (and has been attempting to find loopholes for) having abortions covered by taxpayer money. With that said though, I'm 100% for contraceptives, but do we need a government funded abortion provider to be the say-all to providing that? I mentioned this in an earlier post, I can literally go to a Wawa by my house and get a pack of condoms for $5. You can go to a pharmacy like CVS and buy birth control pills. You can get an IUD through some medical providers. These are all widely accessible resources, and if Planned Parenthood ever ceases to exist, there are still a plethora of options for people.

 

[orch]

the claims that life isn't defined by science is ridiculous. sure, it's tentative and contentious. it is subject to change by evolving interpretations of biology.

here's a common consensus by most biologists of what constitutes a life taken from wikipedia:

1. Homeostasis: regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state; for example, sweating to reduce temperature
2. Organization: being structurally composed of one or more cells – the basic units of life
3. Metabolism: transformation of energy by converting chemicals and energy into cellular components (anabolism) and decomposing organic matter (catabolism). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life.
4. Growth: maintenance of a higher rate of anabolism than catabolism. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter.
5. Adaptation: the ability to change over time in response to the environment. This ability is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism's heredity, diet, and external factors.
6. Response to stimuli: a response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism to external chemicals, to complex reactions involving all the senses of multicellular organisms. A response is often expressed by motion; for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun (phototropism), and chemotaxis.
7. Reproduction: the ability to produce new individual organisms, either asexually from a single parent organism or sexually from two parent organisms.

a zygote is able to maintain homeostasis with cellular communication, diffusion of water using complex proteins, and changing cell membrane composition of fat to maintain temperature.

a zygote is organized by cells.

a zygote grows by assimilating nutrients in the womb to form more cells.

a zygote is able to use epigenetics to adapt its genetic expressions to adapt to the conditions of mother's womb.

a zygote is able to response to stimuli with various receptors on cell membrane and in the cytoplasm which trigger appropriate reactions to maintain its homeostasis and growth.

a zygote certainly have an ability to reproduce by eventual maturity into a human adult to sexually reproduce.

the claims that a zygote is not a life simply doesn't hold up in the science where we treat bacteria as living beings... funny how the pro-choicers love to claim that they're pro-science, yet they're obviously being deliberately ignorant to dehumanize smaller forms of human beings to be able to murder them. we can do better than murdering people simply because they exist and we should.

e: minor grammar mistakes

 

[kd24]

I think the older I get the more spiritual I become. No one tells you when you’re 18 that life isn’t what it seems and that when they say “life experiences” it means something you can’t quite put into words. It’s the synchronicities, the unexplainable, the people put into your life at the perfect moment or for a reason. Watching the matrix and smoking a lot of weed isn’t going to allow you to understand this, you have to experience life to really learn this and meditate on it. And I think along with that, the more I live and learn, I really grow a distaste for abortion as a practice. I think when I was younger, I was simply uncaring and went with the “liberal stance” and could defend it with bullet point reasons, like I was in a high school debate. But like I said, the older I get, the more unreasonable abortion becomes to me. I think of every unique thought, idea, and experience we all must have and to take that away from new life is trying to assert a sense of control that shouldn’t be there. That said, I also think people are not defined by their beliefs so much as they are your interactions personally. I have many pro choice and pro life friends and I don’t think of one above the other. Life’s about coming to new conclusions about what’s important and what’s not at any time. I think if someone came to me and told me they wanted to get an abortion, I’d really ask them to reconsider because life is such a beautiful experience. But I’d support their right to do what is in their hearts nonetheless. I’m not going to win any support on the stance but arguing the semantics of when life begins scientifically and the politics of it just to me is a complete lack of life experience. The world is a beautiful thing and philosophically, I believe it is a constant stream...we are the universe experiencing itself and bringing new life into the world is magical for the life itself.

This isn’t anything more than just my own personal observation. I’m not saying pro choice people are uncaring or anything like that; I just do think it’s an issue that people are quick to argue back and forth rather than taking more time to meditate on life and themselves and seeing if new feelings come out.

 

[cookie]

pro-lifers are sexually repressed nerds who can't stand the idea that women might have enough autonomy to freely express themselves sexually. if they can't have that pussy then they want that shit locked down for everyone else too.

the anti-abortion argument boils down to whether you support a woman's right to body integrity over the rights of a fetus. if you support the latter you ARE against women's rights. just own it, and say that women are second-class citizens for it because sex is a two-player game and biology dictates that they get the short end of the stick (just because biology dictates a norm doesn't mean we should follow it - we have the power to change that as a species). just say that you're OK with this and move on rather than hiding behind religious arguments (that are tantamount to appeal to authority/conservatism) or telling women they shouldn't have sex if they don't want kids.

 

[Dece1t]

pro-lifers are sexually repressed nerds who can't stand the idea that women might have enough autonomy to freely express themselves sexually. if they can't have that pussy then they want that shit locked down for everyone else too.

No issue there, I guarantee you. :I

Also, none of us have argued against women doing whatever the hell they want with their sex lives. Feel free to read back and quote where we said that isn't the case lol, because it doesn't seem like you've been paying a lot of attention to the prior discussion. We're all talking about the lives the the babies, not how women want to express themselves sexually which I could give a half a shit.

the anti-abortion argument boils down to whether you support a woman's right to body integrity over the rights of a fetus. if you support the latter you ARE against women's rights. just own it, and say that women are second-class citizens for it because sex is a two-player game and biology dictates that they get the short end of the stick (just because biology dictates a norm doesn't mean we should follow it - we have the power to change that as a species). just say that you're OK with this and move on rather than hiding behind religious arguments (that are tantamount to appeal to authority/conservatism) or telling women they shouldn't have sex if they don't want kids.

Or I'm simply against a woman not killing their child, because that's fucking barbaric? Women are attributed equal rights as with anyone else, yes women are the ones that incubate babies, I just did an entire post that if the woman is on top of their shit, men can be held just as responsible, thanks to the scientific advancements of DNA testing and the heavy imposing of child support. Once again as well, no one here has resorted to any religious arguments, keep crying wolf all you want it ain't taking you places, you're only getting annoying bringing that up let alone making any legitimate points there. Finally, it is a scientific fact that abstinence is the only 100% foolproof way to not produce a baby. I am not stopping anyone from using birth control, quite the opposite actually (that's something I am a proponent of alongside sex ed ftr, before one of you shouts me down again that I'm not), however its a matter of acknowledging the risks (which even IUD's have a less than 1% chance of failing, there have been a couple recorded cases). If a baby is produced, they should not be killed over something that let alone isn't even their fault. Sex always = chance to produce a baby, no matter how minute. I don't control biology, neither do you.

I'm gonna say it again. You are not the virtuous moral authority for saying "I think women should chop up their babies because they're simply a clump of cells, but only if they don't want them!" What a bloody joke. Quit acting like it, and spare me your crocodile tears over how misogynist pro-lifers are. I for one treat the women in my life with a shit ton of respect and authority, hell my Italian girlfriend would slap me and curse me out shitless if I otherwise didn't. You're the ones allowing babies to be killed up to before they past the birth canal. That is fucking disgusting, you mug.