Well I don't know how widespread it is now but four years ago many states were recieving funding to teach abstinence only (mine included). While in theory it might sound like a good idea it didn't work since people eventually gave in and had sex. The worst part was that they taught us next to nothing about condoms or other forms of protection so when people ended up having sex they used NO protection.
-
Check out the relaunch of our general collection, with classic designs and new ones by our very own Pissog!
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
Abortions
- Thread starter panamaxis
- Start date
- Status
Well I don't know how widespread it is now but four years ago many states were recieving funding to teach abstinence only (mine included). While in theory it might sound like a good idea it didn't work since people eventually gave in and had sex. The worst part was that they taught us next to nothing about condoms or other forms of protection so when people ended up having sex they used NO protection.
Hi, Ancien, my name is Mr Indigo and I'd like to wish you a hearty welcome to the real world.
OF COURSE people have different levels of legal rights. As a child, you don't have the right to vote, adults do. There is a systematically enforced inequality between different classes of people.
The fundamentality of human rights is not strictly that every human being is equal (and even then, it is not a difficult argument to make that a foetus is not a human being). It is that there are certain types of rights that we as a global society have agreed are afforded to people on the basis of them being a human. These rights obviously have a hierarchical structure because it is not uncommon for Person A's rights to conflict with Person B's rights, in which case one of the rights must prevail.
I agree that the conservative lobby (which is a bit more powerful in the USA than it is here) have a totally naive idea about sex education, and they are just generally uncomfortable with teaching their children about sex at all. Consequently, they take a very pre-WW2 Britain approach to it and just block their ears, avert their eyes and say LALALALA IF I DO THIS LONG ENOUGH MAYBE IT WILL GO AWAY.
However, sex education is done properly in many places. Here, certainly. I think we had some level of sex education every year in Health class from Year 7 or 8 until Year 11 (when it wasn't a compulsory course anymore). It included stuff on different types of contraception and the way to use them properly.
I think your italicised comment is quite correct, but statistics show that regardless of laws and abstinence education policies, kids are going to start fucking each other when they're 12-15 anyway, so if you actually care about their wellbeing instead of your own embarrassment as a parent, you'll educate them properly.
Human life begins at conception. No one debates this concept when they are protecting endangered bird eggs or when they make the 3rd grade science textbooks, but somehow this knowledge becomes arcane and esoteric when we discuss abortion.
Therefore, abortion kills a human being. Usually for money. If it didn't kill something that is living and growing it wouldn't have a timeframe on it.
Abortion is easily the greatest possible evil ever visited upon humanity, to purposely turn a mother's womb from it's pivotal role in creating life to being a location for its taking.
But women who get abortions are not evil. Often they are confused, scared, and dealing with a very difficult time in their life. They are concerned about their future and the future of their baby if they give birth. No one says they are carrying a fetus, they know they are carrying a human being, it's obvious.
The most evil people on earth are those who enable abortions and take advantage of these vulnerable women just to make a quick buck (or in Planned Parenthood's case, a cool billion). This is especially true when they protect child rapists by getting abortions for minors under the table without reporting a statutory rape. Planned Parenthood is infamous for this. Another example was uncovered recently. There is a reason the same people who go around telling people they need all the information about rubbers and pills and diaphragms never want to show women an ultrasound of their pregnancy.
There's really not that much to say about abortion. It's a travesty whenever it happens, and it wouldn't be necessary in a society that steps up to help women going through such a difficult period. That is why I always support organizations like Birthright (provides material, emotional, and spiritual support to women struggling through crisis pregnancies) whenever I can.
Therefore, abortion kills a human being. Usually for money. If it didn't kill something that is living and growing it wouldn't have a timeframe on it.
Abortion is easily the greatest possible evil ever visited upon humanity, to purposely turn a mother's womb from it's pivotal role in creating life to being a location for its taking.
But women who get abortions are not evil. Often they are confused, scared, and dealing with a very difficult time in their life. They are concerned about their future and the future of their baby if they give birth. No one says they are carrying a fetus, they know they are carrying a human being, it's obvious.
The most evil people on earth are those who enable abortions and take advantage of these vulnerable women just to make a quick buck (or in Planned Parenthood's case, a cool billion). This is especially true when they protect child rapists by getting abortions for minors under the table without reporting a statutory rape. Planned Parenthood is infamous for this. Another example was uncovered recently. There is a reason the same people who go around telling people they need all the information about rubbers and pills and diaphragms never want to show women an ultrasound of their pregnancy.
There's really not that much to say about abortion. It's a travesty whenever it happens, and it wouldn't be necessary in a society that steps up to help women going through such a difficult period. That is why I always support organizations like Birthright (provides material, emotional, and spiritual support to women struggling through crisis pregnancies) whenever I can.
this is true...and i like to believe that the right to life prevails over all other rights.
Look...there is ALMOST no denying that in some cases, abortion should be legal(health of the mother, etc.). A person is allowed to kill another person in self-defense, so why should abortion be any different? The problem is that about 95 percent of abortion cases in the United States(I have no clue what the numbers are in Britain, but I am sure they can't be off by that much) are "no reason" abortions(AKA, "convenience" abortions). I see no reason why people should be allowed to harm life, even "prospective" life, for convenience' sake. It's the exact same reason we should take care of the environment, as Deck Knight pointed out.
yeah you have no concept of rights
Rights are irrelevant to privileges given out by the state because natural rights exist prior to the state. Therefore, "voting rights" - rights that can only exist in a governmental perspective, is not relevant to the right to exist.
Fetuses are not human based on what? Sentinence? That means anyone with a severe mental disability as well as all children prior to at least 6 months of age are not human beings. Being out of the womb and no longer a "parasite"? The fetus is just as dependent outside the womb as it is inside the womb.
Contrast that with the fact that from conception to natural death, the genetic makeup of a human being remains constant. The "blueprint" for each person is written at conception, and it remains. That is the constant that connects the embryo and fetus to the baby, child, and adult.
It's not the conservative lobby alone - It's simply the natural squeamishness to parents about the idea of their children as sexual beings, and it is shared by even the most culturally liberal parents. Also, my experiences are America-based, so yeah.
People don't protect endangered bird eggs because life begins at conception. It's because if they don't, the species will die out. It's not because any individual egg has some particular significance, just that the collective problem of the species means maximising the number of eggs that hatch means maximising the low chance of survival of the species.
You're conflating two different principles. Abortions would be relevant here if the human birth rate was dropping to the point that the species couldn't sustain itself.
Cancer. It's a living, growing thing, made of human cells, just like fetus. Branching out further, we farm and kill animals all the time, and they live and grow.
Spirituality/Religiousness, argument void.
That would be because showing vulnerable women ultrasounds is trying to emotionally blackmail people into your religious beliefs. It's a different process.
Furthermore, it's not like the abortion clinics go looking for pregnant women and say "Hey you! Ever thought about how much trouble your baby is going to be on your life! Maybe you should get an abortion! Come one, come all!", so it's not about making a quick buck. There's no marketing, no advertising. Women go there when they already don't want the child.
Most of those charities (although not all) are exploitative in nature too, because they take a religious conversion bent. They "give spiritual support" by taking advantage of vulnerable people and convincing them that their religious beliefs are the truth.
Natural rights are only created by interstate agreement, that is, exactly the same sort of discussions and legislative declarations that generate rights at a national level. Indeed, outside of the US (where treaties are self-enacting), natural rights do not exist within a country until they are codified by the domestic government.
Short of applying a spiritual argument, which are void because they lack any form of uniformity, there are no rights but those that are created for us.
Please don't tell me I don't know about rights; I have been studying them for 5 years.
That said, my point about suffrage wasn't to confirm that the woman's rights trump the fetus' rights, if it has any, simply that the concept of all rights and peoples being equal is a false one; there is a hierarchy of rights and they regularly come into conflict.
This is related to the point I made before; human beings cannot be afforded any sort of special natural significance and our definition of sentience is by-and-large a fundamentally flawed attempt to do so. If you accept a cancer as life, then it means you must also accept a sperm cell (of which a single pregnancy kills billions) as life, and a cancer as life.
This is true, but progressive parents are more likely to be okay with it, I think. It doesn't mean they all are, but I think the statistics would be densest in the conservative groups.
Where the fuck are you pulling those statistics from?
I just wanted to say that when I said "intermittent factors" and joked about the coat hanger, I assumed that would include anything like a miscarriage or issue within the pregnancy that interferes with or prevents progression of the pregnancy.
Sperm and eggs when paired do make babies, that's good that two of you managed to put that together. However, I think you grossly misinterpreted what I was actually saying, or perhaps I was a bit vague. Sperm and egg have the potential only when circumstances are permitting; it isn't even inevitable that sperm + egg = baby, there's a myriad of issues that can cause interference. Once the zygote is made though, I'm certain the chances of it becoming sentient far surpass the chances of any given single sperm/egg.
I'm sorry but I must say that deck knights comment about abortions being one of the worst travesties to befall humankind made me actually laugh. I know you're a right wing kind of guy but holy hell- REALLY? I'd say abortion isn't a favorable outcome and sure it stinks, but there are certainly many instances of horror exacted on humanity by humanity that surpass the concept of abortion. You sometimes baffle me deck knight, and I say this with the most respectful intent I can. Also, human life technically begins at meiosis- genetically speaking, all those sperm and egg cells are still human progenitors but are living organisms with human DNA- sounds like a pretty rock solid definition of being human: "Being alive under the circumstances that you have human DNA". By definition that kinda means every time you squeeze out a load on a crumpled piece of porn you are a mass murderer, but of course that'd be just silly to throw that around and be a weasel about it.
Edit: Mr Indigo I have no idea what kind of human being wouldn't consider a living cell like sperm or cancer cells to be not living. Silly people do exist though, so your point is valid.
Sperm and eggs when paired do make babies, that's good that two of you managed to put that together. However, I think you grossly misinterpreted what I was actually saying, or perhaps I was a bit vague. Sperm and egg have the potential only when circumstances are permitting; it isn't even inevitable that sperm + egg = baby, there's a myriad of issues that can cause interference. Once the zygote is made though, I'm certain the chances of it becoming sentient far surpass the chances of any given single sperm/egg.
I'm sorry but I must say that deck knights comment about abortions being one of the worst travesties to befall humankind made me actually laugh. I know you're a right wing kind of guy but holy hell- REALLY? I'd say abortion isn't a favorable outcome and sure it stinks, but there are certainly many instances of horror exacted on humanity by humanity that surpass the concept of abortion. You sometimes baffle me deck knight, and I say this with the most respectful intent I can. Also, human life technically begins at meiosis- genetically speaking, all those sperm and egg cells are still human progenitors but are living organisms with human DNA- sounds like a pretty rock solid definition of being human: "Being alive under the circumstances that you have human DNA". By definition that kinda means every time you squeeze out a load on a crumpled piece of porn you are a mass murderer, but of course that'd be just silly to throw that around and be a weasel about it.
Edit: Mr Indigo I have no idea what kind of human being wouldn't consider a living cell like sperm or cancer cells to be not living. Silly people do exist though, so your point is valid.
Well, my rhetoric was really geared less at believing cells are alive, and more about the belief that their life is therefore sacred.
Nice response, very substantive. It's not like this information is readily available on Wikipedia or a thousand other web sites. I guess I can give a few examples:
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/abreasons.html
http://www.pro-life.com/index.php/abortion/684?task=view
Those two sites are clearly anti-abortion, so I think it is safe to say that their numbers are somewhat biased; I looked on abortion.org and other abortion sites to get the opposite statistical take, but couldn't find anything(apparently they do not stress the percent of "hard-case" abortions nearly as much, which leads me to believe the pro-life statistics are not quite as biased as one might expect, although I am quite certain they are biased). If you find something please let me know, but as of now, with all available data pointing to only 1-2 percent being "hard-case", I think it is a relatively good estimation that about 5 percent are actually "hard-case". As this was literally the only statistic I quoted, I really cannot imagine what else you mean, or what you mean by "statistics". Maybe you could clarify, or even better, ACTUALLY ADDRESS MY POINT?
Abortion has destroyed more human lives than any other single cause in the world. Did you know that Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood and renowned eugenicist had actually suggested abortion as a way to keep down the population she described as idiots and negroes?
And who can say Sanger failed when abortions have a disparate impact in minority communities? Abortion has slaughtered more black babies than the Ku Klux Klan could have even in their wildest fantasies at the height of their power. Abortion is a tool of control and abuse. It isn't like in the fairy tales where you hear all about "a woman's right to choose." Often she is pressured by an older boyfriend or an adult abuser into an abortion to "hide the evidence," which pro-abortion proponents are more than happy to enable. They make money off this deal and they've seen enough tiny human parts to know exactly what they're doing. If you can tear a human being to shreds as part of your occupation, do you really care whether it was the result of rape or if it's the same girl you've seen four times previously?
It more than "stinks," it is more than "unfavorable." It forever alters the relationship between mother and child. It leaves an indelible black mark of trauma on anyone who gets one, except those who choose to hide it by screaming in anguish at anyone who tells them the truth. Some things are so intrinsically evil that they shouldn't be a choice. Once you can kill the most defenseless among us legally, there is no limit to what you can justify.
I'm not even going to bother responding to the standard canards of "what about sperm/eggs! What about cancer!" If you have to be so obtuse to the point you can not tell the difference between a self-contained human being and individual cells I can't help you. We cannot possibly have a serious discussion when you will not recognize the obvious uniqueness of the fertilized human embryo.
Let me put it to you in the succinctest terms I can:
Why do people hate The Duggars for their large family yet, if they had 18 abortions and counting some would scarcely bat an eye? Such preconceptions are a product of the abortion culture combined with overpopulation hysteria and the hatred of mankind. Abortion brings with it a destructive and hateful philosophy antithetical to the dignity of human life.
Really DK, nobody buys your brand of bullshit. "Let's just throw around random claims and defend things because my party tells me to!" I challenge you to think independently for once.
Considering that safe abortions have only really been possible in the past sixty years, there is no possible way for there to be more abortions than deaths due to hunger, or cardiovascular disease, or anything else for that matter.
Abortion. I approve under certain circumstances (I don't approve if the woman is forced to do it) (see MrIndigo for proper arguments).
Deck Knight: You have to look at this from another angle. Gather around its story time:
On a chilly day of March a Smoochum is studying for a big test tomorrow. When all of a sudden an Electabuzz (i.e. dad) bursts into her room. She quickly notice he is drunk and seems to have fought somebody. She asks him to leave as the big test is tomorrow but daddy won't listen and grabs her and starts mumbling about her being beautiful. She begs him to stop and starts screaming for help. He stuffs a sock in her mouth. -rape-. So what should Smoochum do?
1. Inform the law and get an abortion sending his own father in jail?
2. Shut up and have his fathers baby?
Or 3. Shut up and have an abortion?
Either way she is scarred for life.
Personally I support "1".
Deck Knight: You have to look at this from another angle. Gather around its story time:
On a chilly day of March a Smoochum is studying for a big test tomorrow. When all of a sudden an Electabuzz (i.e. dad) bursts into her room. She quickly notice he is drunk and seems to have fought somebody. She asks him to leave as the big test is tomorrow but daddy won't listen and grabs her and starts mumbling about her being beautiful. She begs him to stop and starts screaming for help. He stuffs a sock in her mouth. -rape-. So what should Smoochum do?
1. Inform the law and get an abortion sending his own father in jail?
2. Shut up and have his fathers baby?
Or 3. Shut up and have an abortion?
Either way she is scarred for life.
Personally I support "1".
So because one lady is a bitch all abortion is bad? That's a pretty black and white way of thinking about it. I'd suggest that abortion has not destroyed more human lives than any other single cause in the world- statistics please. I'd wager open warfare has it edged by a substantial margin.
So now abortion is being compared with the KKK because it kills black babies? You do know it kills without any discrimination. This is a comparison that is a fine example of what I meant when I said you baffle me. How you can even compare those two is completely beyond me.
Not always. You are so black and white- just because it happens in some cases does not make it ubiquitous.
They probably don't care about the circumstances for an unwanted pregnancy, you're right. Why should they? It's none of their fucking business. Their job is to remove the unwanted baby and I'm sure they assume the decision has been weighed morally by the person. How is it the aborter's responsibility to make sure that it's not some amoral reason for killing the child? The blame would rest on the abortee, not the aborter.
I'll say, the baby fuckin' dies
Again, a very all or nothing attitude. I've outlined in my previous posts why there are some absolute instances as to when a baby should be morally aborted. Crack babies, FAS babies, those with severe genetic detriments (like ones that will die after a short, painful life), babies that will be born into poverty or ruin their mothers lives (and by extension ruining the babies future life).
Life is life whether you want to admit it or not. I guess when you're raised to believe you have dominion over all animals, you can draw that line in the sand pretty deep hey?
Because the duggars are sons of bitches. There is ZERO call for having that many kids when the population is booming so fiercely out of control. It's irresponsible and a TV novelty. I dunno, I think 18 abortions and counting is something TLC would totally air- they prey on the Sick, the weak and the socially different to get ratings.
Oh dear abortion has it's own culture now? That is just...well words can't describe that. You're pretty out there sometimes man. How does abortion automatically mean hatred of mankind? Please outline this destructive philosophy that is overshadowing every instance of abortion. I find that there is no dignity of human life in a single 15 year old mother living on welfare trying to make ends meat for her and her crack addicted rape baby. Maybe if she had aborted she woulda been better off? No, not maybe, DEFINITELY. I'd like you to keep in mind one thing when replying: I'm not taking the exact opposite view of you- I'd rather there be zero abortions, I'm just saying that there are cases where abortion is entirely the moral and logical course of action. Certainly not in the frequency we see today, but even you must admit that in some cases it's better to abort.
Oh yeah and it's not hysteria if it's founded. Humanity is overpopulated. Period.
By the way, there are other benefits to abortions as well. Stem cell research, which I know you've piped about before as being bad so I won't draw you further into that, is just one example of a positive side effect.
Abortion is murder plain and simple. I'm not against abortion in cases where it saves the mother's life but the percentage of abortions that occur for that reason or even because of birth defects is so low that any argument based on that is really just using the minority to justify the majority.
Not saying that stem cell research is bad but honestly fetal stem cell research has been way less productive than adult stem cell research so that's really not a great argument either.
Abortions kill babies. Usually for the convenience of the mother. Arguments like "the baby would have been unwanted and unloved anyway" or the "the baby would have been raised in poverty" are so ridiculous.
Yeah lets go kill all those unloved and poor people and release from their utter despair and misery. They will thank us later... right.
How can you say it's not alive? How can you say it's not a person? At what point does it become a real person? Abortion stops a beating heart. Babies in the womb are very much alive. The whole affair is sad and terrible in general.
Not saying that stem cell research is bad but honestly fetal stem cell research has been way less productive than adult stem cell research so that's really not a great argument either.
Abortions kill babies. Usually for the convenience of the mother. Arguments like "the baby would have been unwanted and unloved anyway" or the "the baby would have been raised in poverty" are so ridiculous.
Yeah lets go kill all those unloved and poor people and release from their utter despair and misery. They will thank us later... right.
How can you say it's not alive? How can you say it's not a person? At what point does it become a real person? Abortion stops a beating heart. Babies in the womb are very much alive. The whole affair is sad and terrible in general.
The US isn't the only country that permits abortion. Just throwing that out there.
No, they're really not. The benefits to society are proven; if many, many of the abortions in the last few decades hadn't taken place the world would be so much worse off. To address your next point, would killing poor and unloved people benefit society? Yes, it probably would. But as its been said, their are different tiers of rights in life (depending on various factors, age perhaps being the biggest), and born persons happen have more rights than the unborn. Beating hearts or not, I believe society's well being takes precedent.
I just gained a shit ton of respect for you with that post, CIM. Same goes to you, Veedrock.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_developmentwikipedia said:
So by the logic of Dr. Attack, I'm guessing it's okay to terminate up until 21 days. If a heartbeat is your line in the sand, legitimately your argument would allow for the termination up to 21 days as it's not quite human yet. Every arbitrary line has it's counter arguments, but I think CIM said it quite well with regards to this debate:
CIM said:
However, babies spend 99% of their waking hours fighting their hardest not to spontaneously die. Their dependent way of life doesn't end when the umbilical is cut; they are quite literally 100% dependent on mommy and her milk, warmth, protection etc for YEARS after birth. So they really cannot function in the least independently of the parents, probably until like age 4 or maybe more. This isn't even taking into account proper brain development, which requires extended parental care. So as elegant and nice as I found your cut off CIM, I think perhaps it's off the mark a little bit.
While you're absolutely right, theoretically after birth, a baby could be raised by someone else, or by the care of doctors. A fetus can't be transplanted. I realize in reality it's not quite like that, but I figure it's as good as anyone could get.
Veedrock said:
First off that study proves nothing although it does seem fairly convincing. Assume that it is correct, there a lot of people that society would be "better off without". That doesn't give us the right to play God and start choosing who lives and who dies based on "the good of society".
There's huge debates about a lot of stupid things. I realize that my posting on the internet is not going to change the world but if I can at least accurately and intelligently defend my belief then I believe that I should.
I'm not totally getting your point here. The fact is that results from embryonic stem cells are years away if they are ever going to be discovered. On top of that Embryonic stem cells have not even been shown to be more effective or practical than adult ones. You might say they have more potential but so far there's been nothing to prove that they are better.
Leave a newborn baby alone and see if it survives. You say the difference is that a newborn baby can be kept alive by other people? Guess what? It still depends on something outside of itself for life! Being able to survive on your own is a shaky and terrible definition of life.
I am not making straw man arguments. Everything I pointed out has actually been used in defense of abortion.
I have no problem making absolute statements because there is such thing as absolute truth.
No I do not. At the same time a baby's beating heart is not merely muscle spasms. It shows that the baby is growing and getting ready for life outside of the womb. The way a baby develops in the womb is not random, it is not without purpose. That is why I point to the fact that the baby's heart is beating before the earliest abortions take place.
This is a ridiculous statement to make. By this definition it should be legal to kill children until they can live by themselves.
Mormoopid said:
I am not saying that a beating heart is the beginning of life. I point that out to show that a baby in the womb is a baby. It is alive and developing. If you don't kill it then it will grow and continue to grow until it becomes an adult. That is life and abortion is murder.
- Status