I agree with you, in principle.

I think that pro-lifers tend to assume that pro-choicers are unthinkingly supportive of abortion and that they don't consider the moral aspect. And I think that many pro-choicers who formed their opinions in-principle don't realise quite the level of ethical uncertainty that people actually considering abortion face.

Everyone I have met (or whose writings I have read) who has actually faced the prospect of aborting a fetus has said how troubled they were by the decision and how guilty they felt afterwards. If they became pregnant again, some of them would choose not abort and others would make the same choice again. But almost all of them still support legalising abortion; ultimately it comes down to freedom of the individual to make their own ethical decision and not have the state dictating it for others.

Rip out that pesky fetus. Spare them the sickness of life.

But why do we even get to decide? What the hell gives us the right to end a child's life before birth. You are effectively signing the death warrant for a person who could go on and enjoy a good life.

OT: The mod who changed the name of this thread to 'Abortion' hasn't got the point of the thread, it's supposed to evolve as a debate would, please change it back since there will eventually be a new discussion here, not abortion. Thank you.

Maybe a 14 year old could live a good life, become prosperous and would create a suitable environment to raise a child to live a good life if she wasn't encumbered with looking after one.

Yes but it's not just 14 year olds who have them. It sometimes just upper class snobs who don't want to lose their figure.

Are we skipping ahead to morality? Okay. I didn't think that we ha finished deciding whether person-in-potentia=person. We can come back to it, I guess.


Would you say that the statement "It is morally wrong to kill an innocent person unless it is done to save a life" is true?

If you want to discuss a different topic, create a new thread. It's not like we're following any formal structure of debate anyway.

I don't think it's morally okay to kill an innocent person even to save a life. Multiple lives... maybe.

Is it really nice for a woman who got raped to raise the child knowing that the father out there was a rapist? Abortion is an option. Your not forced to do it. If your against it, dont stop others from doing it just because you dont like it. Maybe this is a bit silly to say. But I personally hate pop music. Just because I hate it I havent got a problem if other people want to enjoy it and I'm not goona try and stop them from listening to it

There's a follow-up coming. I had thought that that statement would be more reasonable since it accounts for abortion where the mother's life is at risk, granting the premise that a foetus is a person. Without the "saving a life" caveat it is even easier to argue against.

What's to decide?

I honestly don't understand how you guys obsess on definitions and formalities if you want to debate on abortion and topics like that.

Like Phylum briefly mentioned, if a mother can't raise a child stably because she and her husband/boyfriend/whatever don't have enough money, are not ready or are too busy with their lives at the moment the lady has a right to abort the baby. There are lots of people born from whore mothers that are crackbabies and stuff like that who probably shouldn't have been born anyway because their mother ruined their life from being irresponsible during pregnancy.

They have a right. It's murder, but the baby isn't even really alive yet. Since it's illegal past a certain point of fetal development I suppose that is at least legally when the fetus is considered a person. Scientifically I don't know and don't really care, because that's not the important matter of the issue in my opinion. My mother had an abortion before she gave birth to me because she couldn't handle it at the time. It hurt I'm sure, but she waited when it was the right time for her and everything's fine now. I don't miss my unborn brother/sister or whatever.

It's illegal past a certain point also because after 18+ weeks it's harder to abort the foetus.

If the parents are prepared to accept and endure the fact that they are killing something that is alive (using the term loosely, which I'm sure will annoy BM) and basically human*, they can abort the hell out of it. I think that they'll have thought carefully about the descision is a given. I could look more carefully into the moral and ethical arguments, but frankly in this age of chronic overpopulation I'm prepared to take a more relaxed view of the situation.

*Why don't we just call foetuses almost human and skip that entire debate? They're close enough to human to be subject to similar treatment.

A foetus is both alive and human. This is testable and non-controversial.

I just explained why in a blog.

We get to decide because there is 7 billion of us and we're not exactly an endangered species. We will become an endangered species if we just let every child that is conceived, willing or not, to be born.

And even ignoring that personal opinion of mine, you talk about enjoying a good life. Would that mean that only fetuses conceived in the uterus of an upper class woman should be protected by all means, only if it is unquestionable that the baby will live out a healthy live? What about pregnancies in Africa? I can guarantee you that those baby will be dead by the time they are 13 and will live a horrible life in the meantime. You still think it's morally right to bring those babies into this world, even if their mother would have had the option not to have it?

Or, what if I could prove to you without any shadow of a doubt that one certain baby will grow up to be the next Hitler? Would you allow it to be aborted then? For the greater good?

Population arguments don't cut the mustard: women who get abortions often go on to have kids later anyway, which they would not have had they been unable to abort before.

And the future Hitler argument is as unsound as the future Beethoven argument for precisely the same reasons.

I just think it's lame to value a life that hasn't even lived yet more than someone who already lives, has feelings, dreams, happiness.

I would hate someone to become depressed and hate their life because of a forced pregnancy.

I value personalities more than anything, cos I feel that's what makes someone a human. otherwise, a body is just a vessel. A vessel for thoughts yet to sprout.

I know I'll probably receive much hate for this opinion <.<

I see no difference between potentiality and actuality.

I do.

And this is why abortion should be legal.

So do I, in that actuality happens and has presence, whereas potentiality is a meaningless concept that can only be applied in retrospect. I could potentially turn into a pile of fish right now, but I won't so I'm prepared to not to consider that eventuality.

EDIT: Speedy shit. But yes, I kind of missed WoF's point there. Abortion is optional, being prevented from getting one isn't.

That analogy is so full of holes it's making me feel ill.

But... you can't D=

Nail on the head.

Think of something equally ridiculous but has actually been recorded as happening before and it'll work better. My point is that 'potential' events are just events that have already happened, but people change the subject of the event.

My point is that I'm not talking of a future Beethoven, but a future human, which is guarenteed to move from potentiality to actuality if the abortion doesn't happen. And even if that child becomes the next Hitler they still have the value of a human life.

da da da DUUUUUUUUUN
DAA DAAAA DAAAAA DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN


This is why I hated Debate Club. A bunch of people stating their own definitions and theories based on opinion, going nowhere really: on something they don't have the power to act on anyway. This just isn't my thing. I'll stop.

Really? You wouldn't have aborted the shit out of Hitler knowing that a few million people would be killed in his name?

I wouldn't. It's not my right to make that decision. Whatever his mother would have done knowing that is another matter.

It's hardly guaranteed. At least a quarter, if not more, of all pregnancies are naturally aborted anyway. I would go so far as to say that while successful gestation is the ideal, it is not normal.

Late-stage partial-birth abortions are almost always the removal of dead and/or deformed foetuses. Dr George Tiller, the late-term abortion doctor who was murdered in the States a year or two ago, performed this service and provided the emotional support for his patients, who frequently had to enter this clinic while being jeered at and egged by protesters on what is already the worse day of their lives.

Just recently a couple were forced to bring their baby to term in Nebraska due to the broad abortion laws there, even though they knew that it would not have functional lungs. Their daughter was born alive and had exactly the life you would expect. The value of the lives of both parent and child were not considered by that law.