Kagy, the difference is that women aren't doing those things to themselves, they're doing it to other people. I guess this is where we disagree because I don't think abortion is killing a living thing. If the fetus is not viable outside of the woman's body, it's not living, IMO. I don't think the government should regulate what ANYBODY does to their body, whether it's abortion or drugs. ------------------ Going for the Rolls Royce! visit www.swirve.com
We tell people not to smoke because it affects others, so there does seem to be a precedent. That being said, kill it. There are 6 billion people on this rock. We can start enforcing reproduction when we've colonized Mars. ------------------ "At one of these governors' conferences, George [W. Bush] turns to me and says: 'What are they talking about?' I said: 'I don't know.' He said: 'You don't know anything, do you?' And I said: 'Not one thing.' [Bush] said: 'Neither do I.' And we kind of high-fived." --Republican Gov. Gary Johnson of New Mexico shares a verbal exchange that took place between he and George W. Bush. (Quote is from the Los Angeles Times, 5/31/00) Dubyah Speaks
I have a problem with the "it's her body" argument. If it's her body, why does it cease to be so in the 3rd trimester? If it's her body in the first few months, then it should be her body throughout the entire pregnancy, and an abortion should be legal the day before birth. Otherwise the "her body" defense doesn't fly. A question for the "anti-life" ( ) group -- Do you think if a person walked up to a woman 9 months pregnant, and deliberately stabbed her in the stomach, killing her baby but leaving her with just a cut in the mid-section, that that person should be charged with murder? What about a woman who uses drugs, smokes, drinks, any kind of substance abuse during pregnancy, leaving the child harmed in some way, whether it be addicted to crack, fetal alcohol syndrome, what have you...should that be child abuse? Regarding an earlier reference in the thread, back in college my wife and I had heard of this thing called the "morning after pill", and decided we were in a situation where we might have cause to try it out. We didn't know much about it, so we went to the clinic where they sold them to get more information first before deciding whether or not we wanted one. After hearing more about this pill, we decided something just didn't sound right. We could not in good conscience take this pill, we felt it definitely crossed the line and was not birth control. We decided to go ahead and take our chances, and lucky for us at the time, we ended up with nothing to worry about. ------------------ "Thick, lustrous hair is very important to me." -George Costanza
Freak, I, like all pro-choice people I know, don't believe in abortion after the baby is viable on its own, unless the mother's health is at risk. ------------------ Going for the Rolls Royce! visit www.swirve.com
anti-life? that's a new one to me. but if that's what you want to call me then so be it. I have no guilt as a pro-choice voter. However, how come 90% of "pro-lifers" are for the death penalty?
oh great this thread has mutated to abortion..ill see you guys 10000000 posts from now when this thread is still cooking 25 years from now...i dont think we'll come to a consensus on this one...have we ever agreed on anything here? ever? i am getting better at rejections in the bar scene after posting a few threads here i can handle abuse and everything close to a slap in the face..thanks guys... ------------------ i am rather like a mosquito in a nudist camp..i know what i ought to do but i don't know where to begin...
Achebe, I respect all(and sympathize with some) of your opinions as well, but I'm just saying that a human being shouldn't be put to death because of a crime that happened to his/her mother. Rape is horrible, and in my humble opinion we should be doing a hell of a lot more than we are to prevent it so women wouldn't have to be forced with the decision of carrying an unwanted child for nine months or putting it to death. Guess what- we're all just cell masses, and it's illegal to kill us. The issue is human rights, not animal, and I think we really ought to start treating ourselves more humanely before we start dishing out benevolence to animals. It's illegal for a person to kill another person regardless of age. Humans have different characteristics at different stages of life- but they're still human! There was a point in all of our lives when we didn't have legs, a head, or arms- but they grew in! Just like there was a stage in our lives when we didn't have as deep of voices, as long of legs, or pubic hair. If we start dictating when a human being becomes a human being out of convenience, then it probably won't be long until we start dictating when a human being ceases to be a human being out of convenience. If we're allowed to kill children because they "inconvenience" us, then what's going to be there to stop us from killing the elderly? The handicapped? Personally, it is an issue of soul, but my argument is based on human rights and not religion. Again, IMHO, we should clean up our act on how we treat each other before we start catering to other species. ------------------ WE WILL WATCH THEM FALL... Next year
AntiSonic, I'm not dictating when a human being becomes a human being out of convenience. I just believe that if the fetus cannot live on it's own, then it's not a human being. Aborting it then, IMO, is nothing more than wearing a condom or pulling out (which a lot of people need to learn how to do). ------------------ Going for the Rolls Royce! visit www.swirve.com
Not that I am one, but to answer this question: Maybe because there doesn't seem to be any major inconsistency with advocating the execution of a murderer but opposing the 'murder' of an innocent baby/fetus/glob of cells. Sorry, but while I'm "pro-death" (both pro-choice and pro-capital punishment), I think the left tends to look really foolish on this one in supporting the ending of a human life when it's only six weeks old and guilty of nothing but inconvenience, but then opposing the ending of a human life when it's 39 years old and guilty of murder. ------------------ I didn't use the cocaine to get high, I just liked the way it smelled.
Number one, I never meant to suggest that you were a fundie, I was merely making reference to the most common reasoning of pro-lifers. I apologize for any offense, and mean none of this as a personal attack. Just discussion. Number two, there is no comparison between DUI and abortion. DUI endangers the lives of everyone else on the road. A fetus, at any stage of development, is part of the mother and therefore her responsibility and her property. Up to and including the right to terminate the pregnancy. In no other instance, save for suicide and use of unauthorized drugs, does the government interfere with how adults use, or abuse, their own bodies. And those three are three too many. As for existing laws, slavery was once perfectly legal. Hopefully the government's desire to interfere in citizen's private affairs will go the way of it's desire to see them enslaved. As for any imagined societal interest, individual freedoms come in all shapes and sizes. The freedom to control one's own reproductive system is hardly on a par with the freedom to smash a passer-by on the head with a claw hammer, or burn down someone's house. If you wish not to have an abortion for whatever reasons you may have, that's fine. But there's no freaking way that anyone has the right to tell me not to have one.
RM95, Infants can't survive on their own either. Humans cannot possibly survive on their own until they can crawl(probably much later than that). The mother's body nurturing the baby during pregnancy isn't much different than nursing it after birth. ------------------ WE WILL WATCH THEM FALL... Next year [This message has been edited by AntiSonic (edited August 07, 2000).]
Most pro-lifers quote the commandment "Thou Shall Not Kill". Well, it doesn't go on to say "unless this person did so and so". So I think there is an inconsistency there. Human life is human life. I do not oppose the death penalty but I do think that our justice system is too screwed up and biased to distribute it fairly.
Right-- but there is a comparison between exempting a woman from laws prohibiting her from having an abortion, and exempting a woman from other laws that restrict her freedoms. That is the point. Not whether abortion is good, bad, indifferent, or great fun at parties-- but whether the argument "men shouldn't tell women how to use their bodies" is anything other than clicheed sophistry. Which it ISN'T. There are a lot of good arguments on the pro-choice side; that is not one of them. Among the reasons why: you seem extremely determined to be allowed to have an abortion. And you seem to buy heavily into the idea that men shouldn't be able to tell you not to. What if 51% of all women opposed your right to abort your fetus? You'd still think them wrong, wouldn't you? I think you would. In which case, you'd probably come up with some additional arguments rather than focusing on their gender. I suggest you take that step now, for the reasons I've already outlined. Gender exemptions like this one are fallacious fantasies at best under a constitutional republic. You either obey the law or you get it changed; you don't claim it doesn't apply to you because of your gender. OK, this extremely tired example-- which is used by proponents of any political position you can imagine at this point-- needs to be retired. It signifies nothing. It is as common, and as silly, and as tired, as calling your opponent a Nazi. Both sides want the law changed. ANTI-abortion people could JUST as easily say this in defense of THEIR position. Democrats and Republicans alike have picked up on this as their coup-de-grace argument in favor of changing any law they don't like. "Well, sure, the marriage tax penalty is law, but heck, so was slavery!" It's stupid. It's a shortcut to thinking. And it's below you judging from what you've posted thus far. That's what Roe v. Wade says. It is an interpretation of the constitution. Currently, that interpretation favors a woman's right to choose abortion. In 5 or ten or 100 years, it may no longer do so-- at which time, you're damned tooting the government will have the right to tell you what to do with your body. I suggest, if you really believe the apparently Libertarian views that you're embracing in this argument, that you give some serious thought to the best way to achieve your political goals. Look, right now abortion's legal. It might not stay that way. Drugs are illegal. They might not stay that way. Do you want to spend your energy in overturning those specific laws? Or, would you rather work to change our system of government so that those kinds of laws would be impossible to pass in the first place? Maybe you'd be better off voting Libertarian. Right-- that's why they switch to the "eye for an eye" thing there. ------------------ I didn't use the cocaine to get high, I just liked the way it smelled.
I couldn't agree more that the whole "men shouldn't decide," argument is a poor one. I am simply of the opinion that no one other than the prospective parent should decide, which is a Libertarian view, at it's heart, and one of the reasons that I do typically vote Libertarian. Even though I do not agree with bits of the Libertarian platform. I am not female. I just wanted to make my points from sort of a neutral position, in that laws are laws, regardless of whether or not they affect one person in the same manner as someone else. That, and it's easier than entering into "my daughter, sister...," etc. And hey, male pregnancy could be right around the corner. I suppose that we could argue the comparison of abortion to crimes like DUI all day, but I guess that in the end it all boils down to the same murder vs. not murder argument, and that's a neverending one. So I'll bow out, having offered my two cents, perhaps a bit too vehemently. Agreed about the slavery reference. My bad.
Why? If a woman should be able to have an abortion because "men shouldn't be able to tell a woman what to do with her body", why shouldn't she be able to fill it with drugs and alcohol and then put it behind the wheel of a car? Why should we limit the gender exception to our laws to just aborting a baby? I mean, if we're going to exempt women from our laws in that regard because we "don't understand pregnancy" the way they do, why can we then say we understand anything else a woman thinks or feels or wants? I mean, after all: Right. Well, except for the dead baby. I'm not debating abortion in and of itself-- just the aspect of the pro-abortion argument that says "Men shouldn't be able to tell a woman to have a baby". It isn't men that are telling them not to. It's the United States government, which represents every man, woman, and child living in America. Women are just as able as men to effect the legislative process; if, after the legislative process has taken action, women find themselves displeased with the result, too ****in' bad. Get out there and unelect the representatives that aren't on your side-- if you can. And frankly, I don't see that happening. I don't think there is a groundswell of support for either the Bible-thumpers or the wailing, coathanger-waving extremists on the feminist side. Most Americans could care less about the issue. See, I agree with you on this-- except when it applies to the part of the argument where women should be allowed to have abortions because "men can't tell them what to do with their bodies". That's all I'm attacking here. Just got off the phone with God and is he ever pissed at you. In all seriousness, you need to back the short bus up there, Special Patrol Group. I'm not a thumper, and I'm not anti-abortion. I'm going to go ahead and re-post part of my last post, because I think it completely answers you: THAT is why we 'have the right' to tell people that there are certain things they're just not permitted to do with their bodies. I'd like to see a heck of a lot LESS of it, but that's WHY it happens. It's oversimplification to pretend that abortion is at all unique as an example of the government controlling our bodies. Suppressing individual freedom is done all the time. Abortion (at least the illegal versions of it) is just one more example of society deciding that a particular behavior is detrimental to the nation as a whole. ------------------ I didn't use the cocaine to get high, I just liked the way it smelled.
