Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often thought?

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With which statement do you agree?

I want it to be illegal for a very poor teenager who was impregnated from being raped by an immediate family member to get an abortion even in the first week of pregnancy even if the doctors can and did detect the baby has severe genetic disorders and that the pregnancy if taken to term would have complications greatly risking the life of both the mother and would-be baby.
7
9%
I want it to be legal for a wealthy woman who is 5 days past her due date (of birth) to get an abortion even though doctors are sure that the healthy baby would be delivered safely and relatively easily otherwise and even though many safe, healthy, loving families are willing to adopt the would-be newborn immediately and even pay the woman significantly for that.
14
18%
I do not agree fully with either one of the above statements.
59
74%
 
Total votes: 80

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LuckyR
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often though

Post by LuckyR »

ThomasHobbes wrote: September 20th, 2018, 3:49 am
Voiceofwisdom wrote: January 9th, 2016, 2:25 am Abortion ought to be legal because I believe in the freedom of the individual to make decisions about their bodies, regardless of what society thinks about those decisions.
Even if the baby would easily survive outside the womb and could make a childless couple happy through adoption?
You would rather kill a viable foetus five days past due?
Wow, sounds scary. Please inform us of the place where such a practice is currently legal (or is that a couple of strawmen?)
"As usual... it depends."
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often though

Post by ThomasHobbes »

LuckyR wrote: September 21st, 2018, 11:32 am
ThomasHobbes wrote: September 20th, 2018, 3:49 am
Even if the baby would easily survive outside the womb and could make a childless couple happy through adoption?
You would rather kill a viable foetus five days past due?
Wow, sounds scary. Please inform us of the place where such a practice is currently legal (or is that a couple of strawmen?)
DUh.
Read the bloody thread.
This is the second post you've made that is an irrelevant response.
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msieber
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often thought?

Post by msieber »

hmm.. so does anyone have input that is relevant to the scenario given by the initial poster? maybe a solution you've concocted or an argument for/against someone else's solution/conclusion? looking for perspectives on the matter more than reactions of "Wow, sounds____" or "Really? even if: (reiterates original post question)?" Also preferably more than implying a lack of desire to give this scenario thought by reason of something like the member ThomasHobbes states:
"Take two ridiculously absurd opposing statements at the most banal and extreme ends of a idea and try to pretend that we all have the same opinion."
If you find extreme hypotheticals absurd that is fine by all means, I suppose this may not be the thread for you; however, I'm not sure we can conclude that we are pretending that we all have the same opinion...at least the poll indicates that I don't personally share the same opinion as the majority of responders and for the majority, which chose the option of finding a compromise between two extremes... there are nearly limitless possibilities between two extremes for people to come up with so how can we attribute "sameness" to the majority vote?
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Newme
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often though

Post by Newme »

msieber wrote: September 13th, 2018, 11:41 pm
Newme wrote: November 22nd, 2015, 12:11 pm SpiralOut, The bottom line, foundation of basic ethics, is respecting what is best for all involved. "Ethics denotes the theory of right action and the greater good." The greater good is that we don't kill each other. This is so very basic, Spiral! How can you justify killing another human being?

A child is defined as a "developing human being." Just because a child is not finisted developing, you seem to assume their life is less valuable. And you ignorantly assume that children killed by abortion cannot feel their bodies ripped apart. Yet, by 8 weeks gestation, all body systems are intact, including the central nervous system (pain sensors), so by the time many abortions are performed, he/she can FEEL his/her body being ripped apart, limb by limb, leaving the head by itself. That is not the greater good, nor right action.

Obviously, you're not a doctor and likely did not rip a child apart yourself - but you may have paid someone to do it. If you hadn't, I believe you'd be more ethically reasonable about this.
Must we assume the only method to abort the pregnancy is by ripping apart the infant while it can still feel pain? Let me go ahead and clarify that in my conclusion on my post I was hypothetically using less torturous means of abortion...ie- injection of a substance into the amniotic sac resulting in death before you start ripping off body parts.
So, would you rather be poisoned to death - by who knows what horrendous poison... or have your body ripped apart? Either way would pretty much suck, wouldn’t it?

It reminds me of a quote (by Lincoln ?) about slavery but I’ll adapt it to apply to abortion... (paraphrasing) “Those who are so in favor of cruely killing a developing child in utero never volunteer themselves for the same treatment.”
“Empty is the argument of the philosopher which does not relieve any human suffering.” - Epicurus
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LuckyR
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often thought?

Post by LuckyR »

Bottom line, you either believe women have a certain autonomy over their bodies or you don't. Reasonable people can disagree, but try to keep the theatrics to a minimum on such a serious topic.
"As usual... it depends."
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Newme
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often thought?

Post by Newme »

How much more dramatic can it be for a helpless child to be ripped apart without pain meds - after 8 weeks gestation when the central nervous (pain receptors) are intact? Some would rather we pretend we’re not talking about a human life being so cruelly killed. It makes THEM feel better if you refer to the child as a parasite or the murder as a surgical procedure. And as we know - it’s ok to discriminate based on age and kill a baby - when it comes to the feelings of a woman. Women’s rights trump those who have no voice. Don’t you dare discriminate against women - but babies - fine - kill them is fine - so they act.

Image

Unless on the rare occasion of rape, a woman has the choice to engage in sex or not. She also has the choice of whether to use birth control or not. Once she helps create a human life - she can kill that child or allow him/her to live. Everything has a consequence and many women regret having their child killed for the rest of their lives. After all, what kind of mother kills her own child?

The choice to have responsible sex - using birth control if you’re not ready for a child - is a more moral choice than killing a child you CHOSE to create.
“Empty is the argument of the philosopher which does not relieve any human suffering.” - Epicurus
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Sy Borg
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often thought?

Post by Sy Borg »

I did not know that a functioning nervous system was required for empathy.

What did everyone eat yesterday?
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LuckyR
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often thought?

Post by LuckyR »

Newme wrote: November 10th, 2018, 10:02 pm How much more dramatic can it be for a helpless child to be ripped apart without pain meds - after 8 weeks gestation when the central nervous (pain receptors) are intact? Some would rather we pretend we’re not talking about a human life being so cruelly killed. It makes THEM feel better if you refer to the child as a parasite or the murder as a surgical procedure. And as we know - it’s ok to discriminate based on age and kill a baby - when it comes to the feelings of a woman. Women’s rights trump those who have no voice. Don’t you dare discriminate against women - but babies - fine - kill them is fine - so they act.

Image

Unless on the rare occasion of rape, a woman has the choice to engage in sex or not. She also has the choice of whether to use birth control or not. Once she helps create a human life - she can kill that child or allow him/her to live. Everything has a consequence and many women regret having their child killed for the rest of their lives. After all, what kind of mother kills her own child?

The choice to have responsible sex - using birth control if you’re not ready for a child - is a more moral choice than killing a child you CHOSE to create.
Everyone knows all birth control methods have a failure rate.
"As usual... it depends."
Fooloso4
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often thought?

Post by Fooloso4 »

Newme:
The choice to have responsible sex - using birth control if you’re not ready for a child - is a more moral choice than killing a child you CHOSE to create.
Does this mean it is okay to kill a child in the case of rape?
Fooloso4
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often thought?

Post by Fooloso4 »

Newme:
How much more dramatic can it be for a helpless child to be ripped apart without pain meds - after 8 weeks gestation when the central nervous (pain receptors) are intact?
What credible scientific evidence can you provide that a fetus begins to feel pain after 8 weeks? Anti-abortion advocates have published a great deal of misinformation on the subject, largely based on the erroneous equation of the development of pain receptors and stimulus response with pain.

But many doctors reject those claims, saying a fetus’s brain and nervous system are not developed at 20 weeks to feel pain. They cite a wide-ranging 2005 study [https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/f ... cle/201429] that found a fetus was unlikely to feel pain until the third trimester of a pregnancy, or about 27 weeks. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said in 2013 [https://www.acog.org/-/media/Department ... 2138545234] that no subsequent research had contradicted that study. (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/05/us/ ... hesia.html) links added)
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Sy Borg
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often thought?

Post by Sy Borg »

Is pain the key issue? If that's the concern then what did everyone have for lunch today? Were pain and suffering to sentient (rather than unformed) beings involved?
maril123
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often thought?

Post by maril123 »

Mostly the feminism around abortion has to do with the right to abortion and how to make it accessible to women based on prerogatives to your own body, to your own life, ownership of your body. This is creating a big literature in which it is implied that there is feminism to abortion. I am not going to say anything about this. Instead, i have to also say that there is a LOT of patriarchy to abortion as well. Women are sometimes forced by family, institutions, boyfriends etc to abort a child. This tendency translates to other aspects of women's lives as well. Women who abort plans, identities, ways of being. Aborted lives, bereft of their full richness. Patriarchy is quite deadening to women. Women's moments and women's lives are pregnant quite often with possibility. And patriarchy has turned us to such expert abortionists...
MAYA EL
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often though

Post by MAYA EL »

Scott wrote: January 29th, 2012, 12:18 am Thanks for your reply Hypeduptrutle!

As of now 83.5% of the people on [url=http://onlinephilosophyclub.com/agree-or-disagree/]Agree or Disagree?[/url] agree with my statement: "I want it to be legal for a poor teenager who was impregnated from being raped by an immediate family member to abort one-week after conception, if carrying to term is unsafe and a genetic disorder is detected."

That's roughly what I would have expected. But I was shocked to find out that most people disagree with this statement: "I want it to be illegal for a wealthy woman who is 5 days past her due date to get an abortion if doctors are sure that the healthy baby would be delivered safely and relatively easily and adoption is available."

I thought the vast majority would also agree with that one. Not only was not the case, but most actually disagree. That's only as of now, and it's not a scientific poll.

Can anyone provide any support for this position? I'm assuming that you all still want infanticide to be illegal; am I wrong about that? What argument is there for legally allowing a wealthy woman who is 5 days past her due date to get an abortion (i.e. kill the fetus in the womb) if doctors are sure that the healthy baby would otherwise be delivered safely and relatively easily and adoption is available when infanticide is illegal?
You sound like your looking for a fight and are having a hard time finding one
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LuckyR
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often though

Post by LuckyR »

MAYA EL wrote: August 25th, 2022, 8:16 pm
Scott wrote: January 29th, 2012, 12:18 am Thanks for your reply Hypeduptrutle!

As of now 83.5% of the people on [url=http://onlinephilosophyclub.com/agree-or-disagree/]Agree or Disagree?[/url] agree with my statement: "I want it to be legal for a poor teenager who was impregnated from being raped by an immediate family member to abort one-week after conception, if carrying to term is unsafe and a genetic disorder is detected."

That's roughly what I would have expected. But I was shocked to find out that most people disagree with this statement: "I want it to be illegal for a wealthy woman who is 5 days past her due date to get an abortion if doctors are sure that the healthy baby would be delivered safely and relatively easily and adoption is available."

I thought the vast majority would also agree with that one. Not only was not the case, but most actually disagree. That's only as of now, and it's not a scientific poll.

Can anyone provide any support for this position? I'm assuming that you all still want infanticide to be illegal; am I wrong about that? What argument is there for legally allowing a wealthy woman who is 5 days past her due date to get an abortion (i.e. kill the fetus in the womb) if doctors are sure that the healthy baby would otherwise be delivered safely and relatively easily and adoption is available when infanticide is illegal?
You sound like your looking for a fight and are having a hard time finding one
If you mean that essentially no one supports infanticide, does this suprise you?
"As usual... it depends."
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Sculptor1
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often though

Post by Sculptor1 »

LuckyR wrote: August 26th, 2022, 3:26 am If you mean that essentially no one supports infanticide, does this suprise you?
There is a spectrum of acceptability and consideration in the issue of abortion. But people tend to set themselves at extremes as they feel that giving way at some point might undermine their argument.
There are three issues.
The desires of the father
The desires of the woman.
and the rights of the potential life.

The wants of the father were once the paramount issue. I submit that consideration to this should be given zero importance, since they are not the ones having to carry the foetus, nor ultimately have responsibility for the upbringing of any child that might result from the pregnancy. This position needs to be relegated to history, though sometimes, when male fundies are spouting one might think that theirs is the only valid opinion.

The second issue is about the needs and rights of women to enjoy their own bodily rights. I find it very hard to find arguments against this, though I would hope that for their own sake and the sake of the potential life within them that abortions are performed in a timely fashion to minimise distress.
The right to command her own body should extend from the moments before conception; the right to take precautions and the right to be free from rape right through to the right to abort any unwanted pregnancy. That choice needs to be hers and hers alone.
Upon what basis could this right be abused or infringed? It seems tragically ironic that those who would defend their rights to bear arms (machines of death) are often the fail to defend a women's right to her own body.
The circumstances of the impregnation is important..

Who amongst us here would condemn a rape victim to carry to full terms the brat of the rapist; to enforce her to carry inside herself the seed of the criminal that abused her?
Who amongst us nhere would condemn a women to carry a mutated monster; to carry on with a pregnancy that risks her own life; or the life of the foetus?
And yet who amongst us here would condone a flippant late stage abortion as a sort of lazy form of contraception?
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