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.

In a way yes, but it goes to the motive of morality. If one is convinced that all life is sacred and thus all abortions should be banned, then would that same abortion suddenly be okay when it would save millions of lives like in the case of a future Hitler? In other words, would the life of an unborn baby be worth more than that of millions of people?

And if you were to scale that down to realistic proportions, would the life of one unborn child be worth more than the life of the mother or the family?

Depends, if you are making such a cynical question you require a cynical answer?

+ A child can be a beautiful person due to it's up-bringing, there are no evil babies.
+ What has the mother done? Is she a good person?
+ What is the income of the family, could they support the baby?
+ Perhaps this is the baby that cures cancer when it grows up? Alternatively (and i know these are unlikely extremes) is it the next Jack the Ripper?

I've already said, that route of arguments is pointless. Usually I'm arguing against the grows-up-to-cure-cancer one.

Similarly, nobody in the world has the right to demonize a woman who aborted a baby who would as a guarentee grow up to cure cancer.

I'm wondering if, in this world where the future achievements of viable foetuses are known in advance, whether the mother is made aware of them before she takes control of her own body.

I just think all that doesn't matter.
I'd say you're a pretty cold-hearted person if you ignore the emotional happiness and well-being of the mother.
If the mother is happy having the baby, then she should have it. if not, then she should have the opportunity not to have it.

Aren't you being hypocritical by ignoring the baby?

Ask any sane person 'Would you have wanted your mother to abort you?' and see what answers you get.

I'll take that bet.

If my mother had not wanted to have me she was perfectly within her right to flush me out. At no point in my existance have I had the right to parasitise her body against her will. I was a planned pregnancy and in retrospect I'm very happy that she afforded me the board. But no person has the right to infringe upon another person's body in such an intimate, violating and physically dangerous way without permission, and a foetus can only be a person or less than a person, so there's no circumstance whereby its rights take priority. As it is my existence is already mindbogglingly improbable, an extra hurdle of difficulty is peanuts.

I have had someone who was very nearly aborted himself try a similar line of emotional blackmail on me, and I wasn't having any of it.

Of course she was within her right to abort you, but the fact remains that as a materialist you'd naturally prefer a life to no life. Nobody has the right to ignore either the concerns of the mother or the foetus, it's entirely the mother's call on a case by case basis.

Even if I don't agree with killing for convenience, violinist argument be damned, it is not and will never be my call.

That's because you don't have a uterus.

Well damn.

As I said.. I don't care much for future. potentialities. As it is, the fetus most likely has no concept of anything yet, and probably doesn't even understand its being aborted. I could be wrong cos Im not a biologist.

And even if it DID want to live, I'd still value the Mother's wishes more, because she has a personality, developed nervous system which can cause pain, depression and she has dreams and wishes and concepts of what's going on. I think it's way more important to keep her happy and alive than a fetus with no history.

And I'm not being hypocritical by ignoring the baby, cos I'm staying pretty true to my beliefs. That the Mother(actually the father too) is the one who should be kept happy.

T-nex's theory could be compared to the culture where elders are always to be respected. In those cultures an elder would never be sacrificed for the good of a younger 'tribe' member. The one with more life experience has the right to live, which is the only right way in my book.

I meant that it was hypocritical to accuse anyone not taking the mother's interests first to be cold hearted whereby a consequence of your argument is casually killing an unborn life because you just don't feel like having it.

Not saying that they shouldn't have the right to do so, just that I'd expect a better self-justification than 'Well it couldn't feel pain yet could it?'

Then again, my arguments eventually commit me to vegentarianism, so go hypocrisy!

I don't think there's ever anything casual about it.

I don't think that holds up once the younger life form becomes independent of the older one.

Howso?

And people tell me I'm too idealistic.

What if you have a test that says the baby will have down's syndrome (or any intellectual disability)? Should it be allowed then?

It should be allowed whenever, but it's not like disabled children can't be happy, and it's ridiculously prejudiced of anyone to assume otherwise.

I'm more concerned about very malformed children that the body did not abort by itself. Their lives are short and horrific.