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| Has abortion made your life better? |
| Yes |
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61% |
[ 19 ] |
| No |
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38% |
[ 12 ] |
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| Total Votes : 31 |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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 Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 9:17 pm Post subject: |
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I regret the abortion we had when we were 18. I was too young and not ready to be a father. I had no idea what I would do about it at the time, but I am sure that like millions of others before me, I would have figured it out.
Now decades later, and after fertility problems in marriage, I haven't had a biological child. Adoption has been a wonderful experience which has produced great amounts of love and some heartaches, of course (just like a bio-kid!), but it might have been nice to also be a birth father. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2008 4:08 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
I do not think legal analyses can settle such questions. What constitutes "life?" When does life begin? Do we have the right to intervene in its processes?
These remain religious and philosophical questions. Best to keep the state entirely out of them. Leave it to individuals and their friends and families to deal with them their own way -- provided they respect Roe vs. Wade's guidelines, of course. |
We're in 100% agreement on this point. But I would add that science can also help inform the topic too. |
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manlyboy
Joined: 01 Aug 2004
Location: Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
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| Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2008 10:20 pm Post subject: |
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| peppermint wrote: |
viable was shorthand for existing outside the womb- I was speaking to manlyboys rationalization.
Speaking as a woman, I'd find that decision a very very tough one to make, even in the first weeks of pregnancy. I'd think that for me personally, the line between foetus and baby would be crossed when I felt it move, but I'm guessing that's a fairly useless measure for legal purposes. |
How is my argument that a foetus is someone else's body a rationalization?
My wife is currently 16 weeks pregnant, and it is a self-evident truth to her that there is another human being in her womb. An argument about foetus viability certainly can't change that. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 2:50 am Post subject: |
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| manlyboy wrote: |
| peppermint wrote: |
viable was shorthand for existing outside the womb- I was speaking to manlyboys rationalization.
Speaking as a woman, I'd find that decision a very very tough one to make, even in the first weeks of pregnancy. I'd think that for me personally, the line between foetus and baby would be crossed when I felt it move, but I'm guessing that's a fairly useless measure for legal purposes. |
How is my argument that a foetus is someone else's body a rationalization?
My wife is currently 16 weeks pregnant, and it is a self-evident truth to her that there is another human being in her womb. An argument about foetus viability certainly can't change that. |
It's self evident to me that all fetuses are just cake. Prove me wrong. |
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manlyboy
Joined: 01 Aug 2004
Location: Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
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| Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 3:45 am Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
| manlyboy wrote: |
| peppermint wrote: |
viable was shorthand for existing outside the womb- I was speaking to manlyboys rationalization.
Speaking as a woman, I'd find that decision a very very tough one to make, even in the first weeks of pregnancy. I'd think that for me personally, the line between foetus and baby would be crossed when I felt it move, but I'm guessing that's a fairly useless measure for legal purposes. |
How is my argument that a foetus is someone else's body a rationalization?
My wife is currently 16 weeks pregnant, and it is a self-evident truth to her that there is another human being in her womb. An argument about foetus viability certainly can't change that. |
It's self evident to me that all fetuses are just cake. Prove me wrong. |
This is a self evident truth that needs to be experienced in order to be understood. Become a father and you'll see what I mean. |
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peppermint
Joined: 13 May 2003
Location: traversing the minefields of caddishness.
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| Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 4:27 am Post subject: |
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Congrats! ( despite the OP's ideas, some of us do like kids, even if we're not prepared to have our own just yet)
| manlyboy wrote: |
How is my argument that a foetus is someone else's body a rationalization?
My wife is currently 16 weeks pregnant, and it is a self-evident truth to her that there is another human being in her womb. |
I bolded the important part of your statement there. What's self evident to your wife, might not be to other women who are pregnant under more difficult circumstances. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 9:04 am Post subject: |
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| manlyboy wrote: |
| This is a self evident truth that needs to be experienced in order to be understood. Become a father and you'll see what I mean. |
Much of what we assumed was self evident turned out not to be. Sorry, as a voter, I don't accept self evident. It's fine for a personal moral choice but I don't want laws passed on what seems self evident to a certain demographic. |
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manlyboy
Joined: 01 Aug 2004
Location: Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
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| Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 10:59 am Post subject: |
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| My beef here is the argument that abortion is a woman exercising her right to do something to her own body. When a child is conceived there are two bodies, not one. Abortion is a woman doing something to another body that is a part of her, but is not her. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 11:55 am Post subject: |
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| manlyboy wrote: |
| My beef here is the argument that abortion is a woman exercising her right to do something to her own body. When a child is conceived there are two bodies, not one. Abortion is a woman doing something to another body that is a part of her, but is not her. |
Define body. Tissue growing inside your body, using your blood, being protected by your immune system seems to me not another body. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 11:56 am Post subject: |
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| manlyboy wrote: |
| My beef here is the argument that abortion is a woman exercising her right to do something to her own body. When a child is conceived there are two bodies, not one. Abortion is a woman doing something to another body that is a part of her, but is not her. |
Manly:
I wonder if you are familar with Judith Jarvis Thomson's "violinist" argument.
| Quote: |
In A Defense of Abortion, Thomson grants for the sake of argument that the fetus has a right to life, but defends the permissibility of abortion by appeal to a thought experiment:
You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. [If he is unplugged from you now, he will die; but] in nine months he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.[4]
Thomson takes it that you may now permissibly unplug yourself from the violinist even though this will cause his death: the right to life, Thomson says, does not entail the right to use another person's body, and so by unplugging the violinist you do not violate his right to life but merely deprive him of something�the use of your body�to which he has no right. "[I]f you do allow him to go on using your kidneys, this is a kindness on your part, and not something he can claim from you as his due."[5]
For the same reason, Thomson says, abortion does not violate the fetus's right to life but merely deprives the fetus of something�the use of the pregnant woman's body�to which it has no right. Thus, it is not that by terminating her pregnancy a woman violates her moral obligations, but rather that a woman who carries the fetus to term is a 'Good Samaritan' who goes beyond her obligations.[6]
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I'm not saying this argument is the be-all-and-end-all of the discussion. Other ethicists have written coherent rebuttals to it, to which Thomson has responded. Something to help you think about these issues, anyway.
http://tinyurl.com/65aefx |
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riverboy
Joined: 03 Jun 2003
Location: Incheon
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| Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 3:49 pm Post subject: |
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It just doesn't settle well with me when the analogy of a parasite is used. That seems to be Thomson's argument. Also, the other pint is the scenariao is to be kidnapped against ones will.
Most pregnancies are caused by lack of responsibility. Regardless, of point of view, there was an act where two people (willingly, we will assume) have taken the first step toward a human being. |
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IMF crisis
Joined: 27 Mar 2008
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| Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 3:56 pm Post subject: |
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I heard that one in college. It's rather lame and I am surprised it's made the rounds. Unless the woman was raped, women do not wake up mysteriously pregnant having taken no active role in putting themselves in the position they now find themselves in. I love how this little fable makes the woman look like some kind of duped victim who was a completely passive player in the scenario. 
I'll admit that "analogy" might work in the case of rape, though. |
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Beej
Joined: 05 Mar 2005
Location: Eungam Loop
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| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 5:09 am Post subject: |
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| As my mom used to say when angry with me " I brought you into this world and I can take you out." Fitting statement when considering whether a foetus is life or not. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 8:46 am Post subject: |
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| IMF crisis wrote: |
I heard that one in college. It's rather lame and I am surprised it's made the rounds. Unless the woman was raped, women do not wake up mysteriously pregnant having taken no active role in putting themselves in the position they now find themselves in. I love how this little fable makes the woman look like some kind of duped victim who was a completely passive player in the scenario.
I'll admit that "analogy" might work in the case of rape, though. |
Well Thomson anticipates that objection, and pre-empts it with...
| Quote: |
Again, suppose it were like this: people-seeds drift about in the air like pollen, and if you open your windows, one may drift in and take root in your carpets or upholstery. You don't want children, so you fix up your windows with fine mesh screens, the very best you can buy. As can happen, however, and on very, very rare occasions does happen, one of the screens is defective, and a seed drifts in and takes root. Does the person-plant who now develops have a right to the use of your house? Surely not--despite the fact that you voluntarily opened your windows, you knowingly kept carpets and upholstered furniture, and you knew that screens were sometimes defective. Someone may argue that you are responsible for its rooting, that it does have a right to your house, because after all you could have lived out your life with bare floors and furniture, or with sealed windows and doors. But this won't do--for by the same token anyone can avoid a pregnancy due to rape by having a hysterectomy, or anyway by never leaving home without a (reliable!) army.
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Anyway, not saying I agree or disagree with this, but that's what she argues.
http://tinyurl.com/ppc43 |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 5:41 pm Post subject: |
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| manlyboy wrote: |
| My beef here is the argument that abortion is a woman exercising her right to do something to her own body. When a child is conceived there are two bodies, not one. Abortion is a woman doing something to another body that is a part of her, but is not her. |
Right, and much of the argument before this has already gotten to this point. This leads us right back to the issue of whether or not there are really two bodies in the first trimester. Many of us are arguing there is not.
Note: I do not support abortion during the third trimester, and abortion during the second trimester I find controversial. |
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