CNN- Abortion Rights Protests Pack Mall

OK, my original number was half the abortions. Cut it to a 1/4 and that is still over $100 billion per year. My question to everyone is still where does this money come from?

 

Can you detach the umbilical? Sole support.

 

IOW, aghast, twhy doesn't have an answer for you.

 

what??? come on..think, andy.

so is your heart the sole source of your life?? if i pull it out, you'll definitely die. but if i pull out your liver, you're not lasting much longer either. so i can't then say the heart is your SOLE support. it's simply not.

 

OK, in that case, one of the markers should be that the "person" must not be dependant on the mother's womb to continue "living."

You are just picking nits and mincing words. You know what I mean.

 

Well, there comes the slippery slope again. The theoretical fetus in question isn't guaranteed to become a fully-functioning human, either. In fact, a lot of the times they do not. Miscarriage, genetic mutation, etc... The germ cell teratoma (granted, it's random whether it would or not) can create all the different aspects, all the different cells of a human being.
It's an individual life, it is human, it exists. Originally, according to a pretty good definition of life:

it is alive. Yet an amoeba, a single-celled organism, is alive by that definition. What I'm trying to say with these examples, and not stating my case very well, is not that it matters when life begins in the womb. A bacterium is alive. Yet we take delight in euthanizing bacteria. What matters is when the fetus becomes human as we recognize humanity.

Thus, I can't understand this statement:

What else could there be? Why else do we exist? In the example of a baby born without a brain, who never is capable of any kind of thought (such things do happen), what kind of human being is that? That's not a life worth living, that's certainly not a life worth fighting over to protect. (The analogy, then, is to a an undifferentiated clump of cells, the original zygote.)

 

and i keep coming back to the point that the very young (from the first second they take a breath) and the very old (until the last breath they take) are all dependent on something for their survival. and we seem unwilling to terminate them away at our own whim. so i'm having a hard time seeing how that can be used as a marker for the determination of "is it living or not?"

 

On a lighter note, did anyone see the T-Shirt that said:

"If men could get pregnant, abortions would be available at Home Depot."

 

aghast --

i hear your arguments...but in a country where abortions are allowed even at the point of birth itself, as the baby is being extracted from the woman...those arguments fall short for me. they're more philosophical...and the hard reality is that babies are being aborted well past a timetable of when the baby has brainwaves...or a heartbeat...or even some sense of itself with pain. in fact, doctors will tell you they have elevated senses of pain very early on...and when combined with partial birth abortion, that's a pretty unpleasant thought.

 

Again, going by twhy77's numbers that would be 23,225,806 additional children that would need to be cared for. Even if only half that number were not addopted that would be $232,258,064,516 per year added on to the national budget. So tell me, what would you cut to make this a reality?

You're assuming $20,000 to raise a child - this is nowhere near reality. Outside of suburbia, you have parents that raise 3 or 4 kids fairly decently on a $40,000 a year income - plus themselves, etc. So you'd have to cut cut your number down quite a bit to be more realistic. Then, consider that "volume" lowers costs too. If all of these people were in government care, the gov't could negotiate lower rates for food, clothing, etc. (Perhaps all the farm subsidies that currently go to farmers to not produce stuff could be given to them to produce stuff, and the food would be free).

Now, you've cut the costs down massively. Then consider the extra economic impact of purchasing stuff and providing care for 20,000,000 new individuals - clothing, etc. That creates jobs, and that creates new tax revenues - so there's some more of the cost. Then once the kids are grown, the vast majority will also presumably get jobs and then pay taxes for the next 40 years of their lives, generating even more new revenues.

Granted, this is very simplistic - 12,000,000 people are not going to be in government care - but there are sources of revenues here too. It's not just a new expense to take care.

 

andymoon, thanks and, uh, what's "IOW" mean (I'm not hip to the netiquette)?

In reference to to your reference to the good doctor, thanks, but I'm on a sufficient dosage of mind-altering medications as it is. But thanks for the Huxley reference and the idea for the Strokes' CD in the background, though.

Again, it's been awhile since I've read the philosophy on vegetarianism I attempted to stretch to the abortion debate and probably mangled, but I think you're missing the point. The point is not to avoid pain altogether; such a thing is impossible. The idea is to limit it to others. It's why, as a child, I didn't throw rocks at chained up neighborhood dogs; I knew how it might feel to them. It was wrong to hurt another being capable of being hurt. It's why I don't hit a girlfriend now, and will only fight defensively. (Then again, as I am not a vegetarian, I obviously don't agree completely with the argument.)

My point in this reference: a clump of undifferentiated cells is incapable of being hurt. A nine month old fetus most likely is. Thus, it is wrong to unnecessarily hurt the nine month old fetus; but it is not morally wrong to terminate a clump of unfeeling cells.

 

I'm not andymoon, nor do I play him on TV, but IOW generally means In Other Words.

 

I'm basing that number as half what the government pays to house a feed an inmate for a year, so I don't think it is that far out of line. Not to mention that a family of 5-6 making $40,000 a year would probably be on some kind of government aid.

Everything that I have ever seen or read about the government seems to imply the exact opposite of this statement. Maybe a private business would be a ble to do this, but I don't think that the government would.

NoW that does make some sense. I can see how that would help the economy in some fashion.

I'm not sure I can go 100% with you on that one. History has shown us that people are a product of their environment. I think that you would find a large majority of these people would continue the cycle and not be very productive members of society.

What do you think would be a real number?

 

OK, and I think I get the basis of yours. Actually, I think the partial birth abortion ban was recently signed into law, if I'm not mistaken (though it faces judicial wrangling).

But isn't that the basis for what we're discussing? A moral/philosophical basis for abortion position. As others have noted, there are practical reasons to or not to ban abortion (e.g. who will adopt all the kids, etc.). They may have some good points, but I don't care much for them. What I am interested in, and what you certainly seem to be, is the moral side of the equation.

OK. I understand your sense of urgency, but take a step back. If you agree basically that the first two cells, sperm and egg, when joined are technically alive but are not conscious and cannot feel pain, what is the harm in eliminating them? I agree that late term abortions are probably wrong. But if you agree that the first two cells, even if technically "alive," are meaningless, then you see the necessity of establishing that line of demarcation of when abortion is acceptable, to what day, to what very hour of the pregnancy if need be, but not to ban it altogether.

Does that make sense?

 

I understood, it was just silly.