i followed you guys on tour!! your covers of the Police's,"the bed's too big without you", were epic!!!!
With great respect (before this inevitably breaks down into accusations of "child-killer" / "back-alley murderer."), Max: Of course, I agree that there should be fewer abortions, as few as possible, but not because I have a moral problem with abortion. Instead, I believe that because sex ed & increased condom/birth control use are safer for the mother than the abortion procedure, and (with condoms) prevent associated disease. (To my knowledge, I believe this is also the stated goal of Planned Parenthood, and the like.) I've seen similar polling. Though abortion still has majority support in this country, a healthy sub-segment of that support still thinks it's in some way morally repugnant, and should be restricted, reserved only for select cases (namely, in the cases of rape/incest, and also when it personally affects them or their daughters). I am always amazed by people who align themselves with the pro-choice movement, then express moral outrage when abortions actually occur. By the same token, I cannot understand people who are against abortion, but find it acceptable in the cases of, say, rape, or to a lesser extent when the life of the mother is imperiled. As an aside, a familiar Rockets fan has the market cornered on these types of arguments (eg: here, here), that portray abortions as morally wrong yet still support them, in the abstract. His arguments are worth reading, but I don't agree with that type of convoluted thinking. Yes. Traditionally, my opinion changes at birth.
Yes Consistancy on both sides would be nice. 30 minutes before birth ok? 3 hours? 3 days? 30 days? Viability? Then again . . maybe they only 3/5ths of human . . .so anything less than 5/5 . . . .you can do whatever the hell u want Rocket River
Despite your indelicate phrasing, I agree. Short of this being a hoax, why didn't she just get her tubes tied?
Book deal? Equal time Octomom reality show? She did want to have children in the future, apparently, just not then. Though, the notion in the article of spite against her lover is, to put it delicately, just a wee bit crass.
If it's within the mother, and it takes surgery to remove the fetus, even if "viable," then yes, I'd still consider it her choice. Why inject race into this? I'm just talking about injecting air.
We're talking about a pretty long period of time here and not just a one-off book deal-Octomom thing. This woman is just mental.
In cases of either rape or incest, the fetus is still innocent. I don't think abortions should be criminalized but fetuses are more than a clump of cells to me. I feel for all women out there who have to face this dilemma but I'm disturbed when there isn't a dilemma. Maybe my lack of forceful action makes me aligned to the "pro-choice" movement, but the name (and its opposite) is emotionally charged with black and white connotations. We tried making abortions illegal, and people still did it anyways, with greater degree of damage and harm. Legal and technological intervention will not solve this complex and human problem. If there is a change, it would have to be on a cultural and societal level. In the meanwhile, we only get two choices. Wid us or agin us.
Agreed, largely. One of the paradoxes of the abortion debate is that the pro-life movement is closely aligned with demands for abstinence education in our schools, but the abortion providers are the ones handing out free condoms, etc. I think, in order to make the cultural leap forward that you propose, that this is one area the pro-life group could learn from the pro-choice movement. In my public school, they passed around a virginity pledge in health class, and demanded that everyone sign, then held their ears and sang "La la la la!" the rest of the year. If they'd made available free condoms instead, and explained how to use them, I am of the heartfelt opinion there would have been fewer unintended pregnancies, and more to the point abortions, to go around.
The Pro-Life argument devolves too much into a morality issue, i.e. "Well the Bible Says!..." and "lets not talk to our kids about sex at all, hopefully they'll never even think about it until they get married." Abstinence is the best form of sex education they say. Of course this is all very ironic considering Jesus Christ himself was a product of a pregnancy that happened while his mother was practicing abstinence. In the same regard, The Pro-Choice argument devolves too much into a women's right issue. i.e. "You can't take away my right to do to my body what I wish to do" and thats not really the core of it either. The real question is, when is it right to deprive a human being of its future? To answer that, we would need to know just when to classify the fetus as a human being, and that is where things become difficult.
I am going to be a grandfather for the first time! I am excited, my daughter in law is due end of January. He kicks alot (its a boy!), It's not difficult at all.
Actually thats a lie. The legal definition of an “Individual" means a human being who is alive, including an unborn child at every stage of gestation from fertilization until birth. Next?
I get the arguments in the first trimester, even if I don't agree with them. I don't get the arguments past that....when the "it" responds to sound and has brain waves...and dreams...and kicks...and moves around...and sucks its thumb...and ultimately can recognize its mother's voice from its time in the womb. It's developing along the way. There is zero neurological difference in that "it" from 32 weeks until roughly 2 months later when its born. Even premies born at 24 weeks or so can hear and respond to auditory sensation. Babies born premature don't act different than those born after a full term pregnancy. And nothing magical happens through the birthing process to make that happen...it's just the typical development. It seems to me the science suggests there's something more here than a clump of cells, unless we're defining babies right after birth as nothing more than a clump of cells. I suppose by strict definition, we are all a clump of cells.
That's exactly it, though. Delivering a premature fetus requires the "birthing process," either induced in the mother or via surgical extraction, in order for the fetus to be viable outside the womb. There are risks to the mother during pregnancy, or during extraction of a "viable" fetus. The agency for that choice must be the mother's, and the mother's alone. To the larger point, I don't find anything all that special about babies, to be perfectly honest. Newborns don't speak, don't read/write, cannot appreciate a sunset, cannot recite Shakespeare or dance the tango, all the things that make us human. A pig has auditory response to human voice, a pig fetus kicks in the womb, and yet I'm still ordering my cheeseburger with extra bacon in a few minutes. That's why I don't see much difference between the last months of pregnancy and the first days of a newborn's life; newborns don't really do all that much. All the cool stuff that makes us human happens, if at all, years later. Thus, I'm perfectly happy to accept the cutoff line as birth; if the mother chooses not to abort, and through inaction chooses to go through with birth, I'm of the opinion she should not be allowed to leave it on the mountaintop and let the baby die. Once it's out of a mother's body, the moral equation changes. Oh yeah? [Sputtering, thinking of comeback.] Your mommas are clumps of cells! ["Clumps of cells," who cares. Give me a fetal clump capable of writing/performing Mozart's "Piano Concerto No. 24," or achieve any other of the heights of mankind, and I will gladly reconsider.]
