In this discussion I would like to talk about abortion. It is always something I have felt very strong about and would argue to the ends of the earth on. I have always been Pro-Life, always. Ever since I became an Atheist, this topic keeps popping up in my head. Since it is something I have not wanted to confront, I have been pushing it to the back burner. Now that I have given it some thought I would like to tell you where I used to stand and where I stand now. When I was a Christian my thought process was "Abortion is Never the right choice unless the mother and child will both die." So even if the child were to survive and the mother dies, abortion is still not the right choice. Some might even consider that murder, I guess. To answer this question I'm sure someone will ask, Yes I would have and still would give up my life for my child. Well, now I'm sort of seeing things a bit different. If a female gets raped and gets pregnant from it, abortion is ok, (sad all the way around - for everyone).  If a woman chooses to abort a baby due to the risk to the mothers life, Ok. If the baby will have a very very very difficult life and in turn make the parents have an equally difficult life, ok. To me abortion is a horrible thing, if someone wants to have an abortion just because oops I got preggo. That is horrible. If you don't want kids do everything in your power to NOT get pregnant. Simple as that. Life is a beautiful an precious thing, and yes I do believe it is special.  Any and All comments are welcome :)

Tags: abortion, pro-choice, pro-life

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I do agree with the proverb. Foolishness and irresponsibility are not interchangeable though. At least not in the context of the proverb.

Which do you think is worse?

Someone who commits an action unaware of the potentially serious consequences, or someone who is aware of the serious consequences but commits the action anyways?

We're talking abortion here, to be self aware that one should not birth allows one to decide to not birth... the rational solution. While an ignoramus goes around popping them out and giving them away. Within a given cultural context, ignorance is not a valid excuse.

No one here is disagreeing with abortion in the case where there is a medical justification, so we are talking about abortion of 'unwanted pregnancies'. To cut right to it we are talking about sex. Someone could be ignorant of the consequences of sex if they never got a decent sex education.

Almost without exception, one who knows how to copulate knows it can procreate.

The total published risk for contraceptives is not only due to the mechanical/chemical failure, it is also behavioural failure.

Neither of these two items are what's at stake here. What is at stake is that once one realises the problem, knowing oneself, knowledge, allows one to make an informed decision. NOT knowing oneself, not knowing one's own capacities, only allows for a dumb decision.

So keep prevention out of it for second, address the consequence.

There is a very important difference between stupid and ignorant. One is about intelligence, the other about knowledge. An ignorant person who makes the wrong choice is not stupid.

Oh! I see, okay, sorry. Some people consider "merciful" as what I described, sorry for generalizing your statement in such a way. Well, what you consider merciful is probably the same exceptions that I would make for abortion as-well. The only difference is that you may identify as pro-choice while I identify as pro-life. Does that make sense?

 

@ Zach - Yes, I think I understand. I assume you disagree that a woman should have the legal right to terminate her pregnancy during the first two trimesters if the reason is, she feels she is too young to be tied done with a baby. Is that correct?

I assume you feel it should be legal for a woman to have an abortion during the first two trimesters if she was raped (although I do recall reading somewhere on this thread that you had some sort of confusion with that). Am I correct on this point, or are you undecided?

I assume you feel it should be legal for a woman to have an abortion during the first two trimesters if the baby has a high risk for a horrible diesease? Am I correct?

Why did you move the conversation over here? I almost missed it.

You are correct. I believe it is her responsibility to deal with the risk that she took and not put it on the child via killing it. I am sort of undecided on rape though. I do not want her to have to live with the knowledge that her child is in an orphanage, or have that child live with her as a constant reminder of the rape, but the baby can not control who or how it was conceived and it is unfair to kill it on those grounds. So yes, I am very torn on that.

Well I am sort-of confused on that too. I want to say yes, you can kill a baby if it's life will be destroyed by disease, but with that logic I should allow full adults to be killed just because of their diseases and that is wrong. No, you should not kill babies because they suffer from a severe deformity or disease.

Sorry for my instability, but I have all the right to change my opinion (as many of you are trying to do), but I also know that this can be difficult while in a discussion. So again, I apologize. So what is your point in these questions? I will wait for your response.

 

You are correct. I believe it is her responsibility to deal with the risk that she took and not put it on the child via killing it. I am sort of undecided on rape though. I do not want her to have to live with the knowledge that her child is in an orphanage, or have that child live with her as a constant reminder of the rape, but the baby can not control who or how it was conceived and it is unfair to kill it on those grounds. So yes, I am very torn on that.


@ Zach - I am going to put my reply to your post on the very bottom of this thread, which as of now, would be page 44. It is a long post and I don't want to do it as a reply to your reply because it would take up too much room.

I would require people to have intercourse all the time, and that make no sense.

@ Zach - I think that is exactly the point that many of us are trying to get across to you. It is a matter of potential. Whether it be a lone sperm cell or an egg, five seconds after it has fertilized; they can both be considered ingredients for a potential sentient being. You just draw the line in a different place than many on this thread would.

What I want to specifically know, is what makes you choose to draw the line there.

Okay, this is my logic.  Once conception occures, it is genetically a human. I do not care what it's potential is after that or what the sperm and eggs potential was before that. All that matters is that it is a human and thus deserves human rights and one of those rights is protection from being murdered. That is all. Eggs and sperm can all die as much as people want them to, potential is nothing but an idea of an out-come, not the actual out-come occuring. Is that clear? That is were I draw the line.

(I am not trying to be aggressive, it just gets tyring to re-explain your-self constantly. But I guess I kind-of asked for that. Sorry if I came-off like that.)

Imagine a sperm next to an egg in a petri dish. By your logic, I could destroy these at will and we would call that birth control. But what if I destroyed them when the sperm was touching the outside of the egg? 1/8th of the way in? Halfway in? How can it be murder at one moment when it was not just a second before? What exactly do you think happens at the moment of fertilization that makes an egg "more human" than any other cell which possesses human DNA? Do you believe in souls? Do you think a human soul enters the body at conception?

Oh my god! (That was typed with a smile, your arguements are very clever!)

The sperm must be all the way inside the freaking egg! Only full humans get protection, not 1/2 humans, 2/3 humans, or 7/8 humans. I think once they fully combine the genetic material mixes at that point, or not, I am not sure. Once the two sets of genes mix, it is a human! And of-course I do not believe in souls, I am not an idiot. I am guessing you said that as a friendly competitive jab at me or some-thing.

So I guess it would be okay to abort the entity (even if the sperm is in the egg), just as long as the sperm and egg have not mixed their genetic material together. At that specific point it is a human. But I do not know how long that takes, although I know that it does not take too long.

Also, thank-you for your apology on one of your older messages.

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