I’ll third this sentiment. Rimbaud: *Slightly more than 20% of pregnancies end in abortion worldwide and 35 for every 1,000 women of childbearing age have one. Is this right?! This says that 3.5% of women of childbearing age have all of the 20% of the total number of pregnancies that end in abortions. This suggests that this 3.5% have more than 20% of the total number of pregnancies. If so, some women must have a LOT of pregnancies and abortions. 78% of geneticists said they would abort a fetus in the first trimester if it was found to have down syndrome. This would be for themselves, not for others. Does something like that change anyones view (similar to if the woman would die while giving birth) in regards to abortion? What about other diseases...what if the child would be born in pain, live in constant pain, and die within 5 years? Would you abort and feel you were saving suffering or would you keep it and hope for a miracle, etc? No it doesn’t, and I think that this narrow view of the value of life is something to be guarded against. This position suggests that the life of a person with down’s syndrome has no value and I think that is dangerous dangerous ground to be walking on. Who among us is perfect? Who is to say which imperfection makes one’s life worthless? There is a group in Canada (and other countries I believe) that runs group homes for disabled people. Their philosophy is different from many such homes. Our Mission: * TO CREATE HOMES where faithful relationships based on forgiveness and celebration are nurtured; * TO REVEAL EACH PERSON’S UNIQUE VALUE AND THE GIFT THAT EACH PERSON HAS TO OFFER TO OTHERS; * TO CHANGE SOCIETY by choosing to live relationships in community as a sign to the wider society that hope and love are possible. Spirituality: * Based on The Beatitudes of Jesus who taught that those who are poor are also rich in some way. People with developmental disabilities, for instance, often have a real capacity to welcome and accept others, and to call people together around them. In L’Arche this reality is experienced through relationships lived out in daily life. * Ecumenical, respectful and welcoming of people of faiths other than Christianity. (In L’Arche in Canada, Jewish and Muslim members are helped to live their faith and attend their own synagogue or mosque.) * Encourages each member to grow in his/her own faith tradition. * Also welcomes people with no religious affiliation. http://www.larchecanada.org/infosheet-main1.html They believe that a person’s disability is their gift to the world. What we all learn about our own humanity through interactions with disabled people is their gift to us. Challenging viewpoint, eh? It isn’t such a great leap though, to see that a person’s worth is more than just their slice of the GDP. What is it about a person that has worth, then, and who should determine what that worth is? I don’t think you’ll have to kick that around for too long before deciding that we shouldn’t be the judges of the worth of a human life. I would go so far as to say that all human life has value, no matter who or how disabled they are. On abortion in general: The argument that life doesn’t start until X weeks has always seemed strange to me. If the foetus isn’t aborted before that time, unless it dies on it’s own, it will become human life. So you’re not terminating human life, you are terminating something that will become human life … !?! :huh: I think that pretty clearly the foetus is human life at the point of conception. Whether there are just reasons for ending that life is another question (i.e. the mother’s life is in danger, or other argument), but it seems to me that it’s disingenuous to claim that abortion before X weeks is OK because the foetus isn’t really human life then.
Sorry, typo...the exact wording was that it spread out to 35 abortions for every 1,000 women of childbearing age. And, of course, not all child-bearing aged women will be pregnant each year but ~20% of pregnancies in a year are aborted. If 35 was 20% even, then that would mean that there are 175 pregnancies a year per 1,000 women. I would assume that some women get pregnant and abort more than once a year, especially in poorer countries. I found it to be a strange way of reporting, especially since the wording in the summary was the same as I just typed - with the 35 figure following 20%.
Max - thanks for the info, I'm glad people like you are trying to get things like this initiated in America. I believe Clinton actually vetoed the PBA bill didn't he?
i can't even read this thread. Abortion? The turd in the punchbowl of predominantly men bbs's. No thanks. I'd rather argue religion with an islamic zealot.
This is one of the few times i've seen an abortion discussion without people attacking each other. Quite refreshing, actually. Thanks.
he did...and i was really disappointed with that...i was surprised actually. congress is putting together a new bill that looks like it will win...and bush has already said he would sign it. i would give up MOST of my other arguments here for this one...you wanna take "under God" out of the pledge? fine...just agree to stop partial birth abortion.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030311/ap_wo_en_po/na_gen_us_congress_abortion_1 Senate backers say this is the year for 'partial birth' abortion ban Mon Mar 10, 7:03 PM ET By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent WASHINGTON - Opening debate in Congress, senators hoping to ban a procedure they call partial birth abortion expressed confidence they have the political clout to prevail after an eight-year struggle. "I think the odds are very good" of having legislation signed into law, said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who made the measure one of the top priorities of the new Republican majority. Opponents conceded as much. And even before the first word was uttered on the Senate floor Monday, the head of an abortion rights organization was looking past President Bush (news - web sites)'s promised signature on the bill to a court fight. "We will challenge it, absolutely, without question," said Kate Michelman, head of NARAL Pro-Choice America. Abortion is one of the most contentious issues in the United States. The Supreme Court has ruled the procedure is legal, but individual states are able to place varying degrees of restrictions. Congress has twice passed legislation banning the procedure, in which the fetus is partially delivered before it is aborted, but former President Bill Clinton vetoed the bill both times. Congress appeared ready to pass a third measure in 2000, but halted its efforts after the Supreme Court struck down a state law with many similarities. The House passed a reworked version of the bill last year, but majority Democrats refused to schedule a debate in the Senate. Republicans won control of the Senate in last fall's elections, though, and promptly placed the bill on their list of top ten priorities. The White House issued a statement of support to coincide with the beginning of the Senate's debate, calling enactment "both morally imperative and constitutionally permissible." Sen. Rick Santorum (news, bio, voting record), said the legislation aimed to ban a procedure performed only after 20 weeks of pregnancy, and described it in graphic detail. The fetus is partially delivered, he said, and then a scissors is "thrust into the base of the skull and...the cranial contents removed. Just to describe it here has to send shivers down your back," he added. He described it as a procedure that is "never medically necessary, not taught in any medical school in this country, not recommended," yet is performed more than 2200 times a year. Sen. Barbara Boxer (news, bio, voting record), a Democrat, quickly countered that Congress should refrain from intruding on a decision between a woman and her doctor. "It's an attempt to outlaw all abortions, to take away a woman's right to choose...and criminalize abortions," she said. "And what follows from that? Women and doctors would be in jail."
I think the distinction between potential human life and human life is relevant. 1) to me human life involves feeling, sensing, and thinking. We generally don't have a problem with pulling the plug if there is no brain activity of the person--yet they are still alive, just not living what most people consider a full human life. By your argument above (potential human is a human) if we get to the point a couple of living skin cells are potentially a human life just like a 1 day old fertilized egg (either in the body or in a petre dish) is potentially a human life than both those skin cells and the 1 day old fertilized egg should have the same protections as a developed human. To me that doesn't make much sense. I would support a partial birth ban if exceptions are there for if the woman's life is at risk. I would suppose some kind of independent medical board would have to be created to handle such cases (approve partial birth abortions in such cases). I would support this.
the problem is, the AMA says this is "bad medicine." they say these are methods that aren't taught in any medical school in the country. those who testified say there can be no risk averted here because the baby is halfway out already when they kill it.
the problem with this analysis to me is that it's playing loose and fast with unknowns...and the result is, perhaps, a terminated life. we talk about sensing and feeling...but to what degree does it have to be to make it human to you? babies develop at different rates, so on Day X, one baby may be to a point where you would say, "no...that's a human life..you can't abort that"...but you wouldn't say that about another baby at the exact same period of development. Also...people don't generally get to pull plugs willy nilly. Certainly not with the same ease of access like to abortions in this country. If you leave behind a directive to a physician to pull the plug under certain conditions, that's your call. But here the call is being made by someone else...and typically it's not to avoid some physical suffering on the part of the one for whom the decision is being made. Often times its made because it's just unwanted. So he/she doesn't get to make that choice. Do we do that with special needs persons? A young child with muscular dystrophy? Can we just say, "you know what...he's suffering...so we'll decide for him...let's just terminate his life?" of course we can't. which brings us back to the earlier argument...is it a life and when is it a life? and how loose and fast are you willing to play with life?
This was getting long winded and I didn't feel like reading everything. A couple of things. Conception can take up to a week to occur. Does the fact that Britian and other euro countries have more socialist systems have anything to do with the lower abortion rate. And the Dutch are absolutely right in teaching sex ed early and they have the rusults to show that it works. If people weren't so prudish, abortions could be made irrelevant.
Fantastic... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19938-2003Mar13.html Senate Backs 'Partial Birth' Abortion Ban Reuters Thursday, March 13, 2003; 10:07 AM WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Thursday easily approved a controversial ban on a procedure critics call "partial birth abortion." The bill must go to the House, where it is expected to pass easily. President Bush has said he will sign it. Congress has passed a ban several times since 1995 but then President Bill Clinton vetoed it, citing its lack of an exception to protect the health of a woman. Critics of the bill say it is unconstitutional because it lacks a health exception and is vaguely worded, meaning it might forbid other abortion methods as well. A court challenge is likely. But backers of the bill liken the technique to "infanticide," and say it is never needed to protect a woman's health.
Well, simply put we pull the plug on people because we have decided that they will not regain their ability to feel, sense and think, right? (Even this can be controversial but let’s leave that question aside for the moment.) We don’t pull the plug on people in comas, for example, who we think have even a fair or slim chance of regaining these abilities. A foetus, if not terminated, stands a very good chance of achieving these abilities. Indeed, we all achieved them from the foetus state ourselves. So I’d say that your example points to our society valuing the realistic potential to achieve these traits of humanness. A person in a deep coma doesn’t by definition cease to be human. And a foetus certainly has the potential to achieve humanness using your definition of humanness (my definition would be even broader). W.r.t. the skin cell example, I would point out that left on their own skin cells will not naturally develop into a human being. A foetus in the womb, if left to natural processes, stands a good chance of developing into a human being. A fertilised egg in a petre dish falls into a grey area, I suppose. If left on its own it will die. But, it was removed from its natural environment and artificially fertilised, so I suggest responsibility still lies with those who removed it from its natural environment. You can’t take a fish out of water, let it die, and claim it died of natural causes. It died because you took it out of the water. The same argument could be made with the fertilised egg in the dish, but I suspect that this would be a greyer area for a lot of people.
Please, please be careful with this line of reasoning. Some evil people are just waiting to take this argument and use it for their own twisted ends: . . . . ... exposing the unborn to Bryan Adams!
