Thoughts on Abortion

[alkemyst]

My position is pretty cut and dry, and your contentions vis-a-vis my position fall rather by the wayside.

Particularly, the circumstances which undergird a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy begin with the fact that persons are human, born, and alive. Fetuses are not persons -- they are not counted in the decennial census, you cannot count them as dependents on your taxes, they don't count as your "2+" as you drive in the HOV lane on the freeway, etc -- and as such they do not have the rights that persons do.

Moreover, not even a person has the right to occupy the body of another person. No such person enjoys an unconditional right to forcibly extract the totality of his bodily sustenance and respirate from the bloodstream of another person. No person can freely inject another person with hormones and bodily waste. Any and all of these actions constitute a severe violation of a person's right to bodily integrity, and consequently any waiver of those rights must be explicit. A fetus exists as a "guest" of sorts, under the provisional consent of its mother, and it is her right to revoke that provisional consent should she so choose and evict her "guest" from the "premises".

Now, to temper that position a bit, there exist legal principles (casually known as "squatter's rights") which can limit a mother's right to terminate her pregnancy late into its term. In brief, after a certain point in a pregnancy's term, it can be argued that the mother has been reasonably aware of her pregnancy and presented with ample opportunity to terminate it had that been her choice. Late-term abortions present siginficant difficulties and risks to a mother's health, and a fetus's development begins to approach viability. At this point abortions should only be performed as deemed necessary by a woman's doctor, subject to the review of a panel of qualified, accredited physicians.

So when women and slaves were held as property, did your ancestors think they were not people as well?

 

[DesiPower]

The world is overpopulated so I don't see any reason to pay for healthcare for the poor either. See how this works? Its fun!

Troll más?

 

[Red Dawn]

Not allowing it, but promoting and encouraging it in many cases. Of course, with my tax dollars soon to be forced to pay for the abortion and related medical care I guess your girlfriend's womb IS my business now.

Given your post a few back I'm not sure you are even past the racism part yet though.. :whiste:

Yeah the racism displayed by IGBT was pretty blantant

 

[Fear No Evil]

Yeah the racism displayed by IGBT was pretty blantant

Maybe he is anti-fetus?

 

[Red Dawn]

Not allowing it, but promoting and encouraging it in many cases. Of course, with my tax dollars soon to be forced to pay for the abortion and related medical care I guess your girlfriend's womb IS my business now.

Well by the looks of you plenty of taxpayers money is going to be used to keep your fat ass healthy in a few years. So your lifestyle should be our business?

 

[Fear No Evil]

Honestly, I can't imagine 300 years from now in the Star Trek universe where we are traveling through space meeting new life forms that one of of the things we are going to be sharing with our new friends is that one of our proudest achievements is giving women the right to an abortion. I can't imagine that we will have made abortions so easy and so common that each toilet will have a little 'abortion' button on it that will instantly zap the fetus from the uterus of the woman sitting on it.

I could see in 300 years every woman/man having an implant that prevents unwanted pregnancy which is provided for free to everyone thus eliminating the common excuses used for most abortions.

As a society I think its a GOOD thing for us to make abortions more rare and not more frequent.

 

[Fear No Evil]

Troll más?

Truth hurt much? Using your logic we shouldn't allow poor people to even HAVE children. I also particularly enjoy your point of:

I believe no babies should be brought into this world unless they parents or the mother is absolutely certain and happy and looking forward to having it.

That would certainly eliminate about 98.44% of the world's births.

Also, since you mention trolling. The only person who mentioned 'god' in this thread is you. So stop bringing up religious zealots when most of us just believe thats scraping a fellow human being out of a uterus is generally not a good thing.

 

[Fear No Evil]

Well by the looks of you plenty of taxpayers money is going to be used to keep your fat ass healthy in a few years. So your lifestyle should be our business?

I never asked for Obamacare to pay for my healthcare. I would prefer not to have it. I pay for the absolute best healthcare I can get now. But I am probably healthier even though I am bit overweight that those who have obviously had their brains fried from too many drugs.

 

[Mursilis]

Government has no business in a woman's womb. None. Any conservative who hates a big intrusive government, yet supports this kind of crap is a hypocrite.

So I'm guessing you're pro drug legalization?

 

[Red Dawn]

A bit? The only "bit" is that it is a "bit" of an understatement

People like you are one of the reasons Health Insurance is so expensive

 

[nick1985]

So I'm guessing you're pro drug legalization?

How did you guess?

 

[Fear No Evil]

People like you are one of the reasons Health Insurance is so expensive

You seriously need to get over your man crush on me man. How often do you fap to my picture? You might want to let your wife know about it.

 

[Red Dawn]

You seriously need to get over your man crush on me man. How often do you fap to my picture? You might want to let your wife know about it.

She just saw the pic and had a good laugh herself.

 

[Fear No Evil]

She just saw the pic and had a good laugh herself.

Stay classy.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

So when women and slaves were held as property, did your ancestors think they were not people as well?

Nope.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

If it began at all?

The universe is a big place. Can you demonstrate that exactly zero life existed anywhere within it at any time in the past?

 

[Atreus21]

To the OP: Are you in favor of partial birth abortion?

OP?

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

OP?

Your question is a bit disingenuous, although I don't really think it was intentional. You're just not very smart.

To ask if someone is "in favor" of something is often tantamount to asking if they advocate for that thing. I don't like partial birth abortions. I don't like limb severance that results from diabetic complications. Both have their place in medicine, however. Does that mean I'm "in favor" of PB abortions? I can say that I'm in favor of keeping it a legal procedure to be performed under the advisement of a qualified physician, just like limb severance. If there were never a need again to perform a PB abortion or cut off someone's foot, I would be very pleased by this outcome still.

 

[Atreus21]

Your question is a bit disingenuous, although I don't really think it was intentional. You're just not very smart.

To ask if someone is "in favor" of something is often tantamount to asking if they advocate for that thing. I don't like partial birth abortions. I don't like limb severance that results from diabetic complications. Both have their place in medicine, however. Does that mean I'm "in favor" of PB abortions? I can say that I'm in favor of keeping it a legal procedure to be performed under the advisement of a qualified physician, just like limb severance. If there were never a need again to perform a PB abortion or cut off someone's foot, I would be very pleased by this outcome still.

Partial birth abortion is a controversial issue, only recently made illegal. Asking whether or not the OP thinks it is wrong is no different than asking him if he's in favor of drug legalization or amnesty for illegal immigrants. Most people are in one of two camps on any controversial issue.

For as stupid as you think I am, you sure do go out of your way to explain yourself to me.

Do me a favor, and let me be. It was my question to the OP, and I'd like him or her to answer it.

 

[Mursilis]

For as stupid as you think I am, you sure do go out of your way to explain yourself to me.

Do me a favor, and let me be. It was my question to the OP, and I'd like him or her to answer it.

Cerpin Taxt is a prime example of why a little intelligence is indeed a dangerous thing. CT can't help but insult others and flaunt his pseudo-intellect, especially in abortion threads. You'd do best to just ignore him. He's beyond reasoning, but if he were half as smart as he thinks he is, he'd have a better understanding of the depths of his ignorance.

 

[Mursilis]

How did you guess?

I was assuming some sort of consistency.

I'm curious about the level of protection you wish to give to each person's body. Do you know what a "mule" is in the smuggling trade? If you're smuggling something within your body, should the gov't be able to arrest you for that?

 

[Throckmorton]

There's no biological point at which a fetus "becomes human". It's not birth and it's not at some trimester (quickening according to the Catholic Church).

The arbitrary use of birth as the defining point for personhood is strictly legal, cultural, and religious (fetuses don't get baptized) and has no basis in science.

The ancient Greeks didn't believe personhood began until some time after birth, so they had no moral qualms about leaving babies with birth defects out in the elements to "die naturally". Were they wrong? What makes that any different from aborting a fetus that is a few days away from birth? How about a "baby" born a month premature? It's at the same stage of development as a fetus of the same maturity...

 

[Kadarin]

III. There shouldn't be exclusivity in an abortion law.

Currently, there seems to be a consensus that pregnancies that result from incest, or rape should treated differently.

This is an important point, because it effectively shows that the real reasoning behind the desire to outlaw abortion is NOT that human life must be respected above all else. Biologically, the life resulting from incest or rape is no different than it would be if the sex were consensual, so the distinction for rape and incest is purely cultural. While one could raise the argument that incest allows for the possibility of offspring with genetic defects, that same possibility is discounted in the abortion calculation if the parents are unrelated.

So what exactly is that cultural distinction? Other people (including people who post here on anandtech) have given the "do the crime, do the time" argument, which states that if a woman chooses to have sex and thus enjoy the pleasure from it, she must bear the consequences of her actions, including the possibility of carrying a baby to term and raising a child or giving it up for adoption. Abortion is seen as a way to circumvent these consequences and thus freely enjoy pleasure from "immoral" sexual activity. Women must be chaste and morally proper, and thus must be punished for such immoral sexual activity.

In the cases of rape or incest, the woman presumably does not enjoy the sexual activity so therefore there is no "crime" for which she must do the "time", and abortion is allowable in this case.

 

[irishScott]

Simple. In cases of rape, incest, other criminally belligerent sexual act or when giving birth may cause harm to the baby/mom, abortion should be allowed. Otherwise, well abortion is not birth control. You make a mistake you own up to it. Plenty of contraceptive options, including the wide availability of plan B.

 

[nick1985]

I was assuming some sort of consistency.

I'm curious about the level of protection you wish to give to each person's body. Do you know what a "mule" is in the smuggling trade? If you're smuggling something within your body, should the gov't be able to arrest you for that?

Yes, I believe they should be able to. For instance, someone smuggling a vial of weapons grade uranium up their ass should be arrested.