Say Roe v. Wade is gone and there's a non gay marriage amendment

No baby could survive anywhere without someone's body. I know that's not what you meant, but it is a truism: someone to hold, someone to warm, someonw to feed, someone to protect et al.

 

May be. That would be infinitely better than the solution we corrently uphold.

 

Luckily, I will not be put in this situation... because I'm not going to get someone pregnant I'm not married to...

but another thing I find interesting about abortion is the fact that the father has no legal say in it...

He sure as heck has to pay if she does have the baby, but he's not allowed to stop her from having an abortion..

 

And I continue to maintain that until the fetus can survive outside the womb, it is her choice whether to use her womb to continue growing said fetus. If I were the king of America and could set policy any way I wanted, that would probably be my line: When the fetus can survive on its own (or at least has a reasonable chance), abortion would be prohibited unless the physical health of the woman or fetus was in danger.

As I mentioned earlier, I would not be averse to setting up regulations to prohibit abortions outside the first trimester so long as the physical health of the fetus and mother were not in danger and I think that would be a very reasonable compromise that most people could readily agree to. However, the fanaticism of the pro-life, as well as some in the pro-choice, crowd will probably keep something so reasonable from being enacted.

 

You obviously have no kids and are incredibly uninformed. Why in the hell would a woman not be able to work for 6 months? My wife worked right up until the week that both of our kids were born. That isnt always the case but it isnt abnormal either. 6 months is an incredibly long amount of time. Perhaps 3 times too long.

As far as it being the mothers responsibility, that is up to the father. Any decent person would do what it takes to be involved.

 

Any decent person would not haphazardly spread his seed around, no?

 

[Calvin Murphy joked deleted]

 

My wife worked until a week before our son was born, but my neighbor has been on bed rest since she was about 3 months pregnant. It is a situational thing.

 

No kidding. Back when the one income, Mom stays at home, family still worked in society, because one spouse could earn enough for the family, the Mom wasn't working anyway. I grew up when this was the norm, and anything else was the exception. Not today, and not for decades. My wife, during both pregnancies, worked and waddled around until she just couldn't manage it. And that was not too long before delivery.

edit: Andy, of course there are exceptions, as you rightly pointed out.



Keep D&D Civil!!

 

My wife was on bed rest for 6 months with our first child and was actually told by a doctor early in the pregnancy (the day before thanksgiving no less) to go home and prepare to have a miscarriage.

With the second kid she actually worked a 12 hour day then had him that night.

 

The question of when a human being begins will never be fully resolved because it is subjective. From conception to just before birth, the fetus grows and develops from a single cell to a baby that is about to be born.

Personally, I do NOT consider a single or even a small group of cells to be a baby. It is a potential human being but isn't one yet. So killing it isn't killing a human being only preventing a potential human being from developing. OTOH, a fetus just a few weeks away from birth and could easily survive on its own is very much a human being so I can see that abortion at that date is actually killing a human being.

But there probably is no clear dividing line. I'm just saying that to me, I do not feel that a single or group of undeveloped cells is a human being no more than eggs and sperm are human beings. But several weeks before birth, it is very much true.

As for forcing a woman to carry through the pregnancy even if she was coerced into having sex, that is something that I have a hard time with. And it does place all the burdens and responsibilities on the female and little on the male.

 

The condition you are referring to is called anencephaly.

On a side note, what is the current law in Texas regarding abortion? Before what week is it legal to terminate the pregnancy for strictly contraceptive reasons (no medical reasons)?

 

Originally posted by andymoon

And I continue to maintain that until the fetus can survive outside the womb, it is her choice whether to use her womb to continue growing said fetus.

<b>"What God has put together, let no man put asunder." Geez, you talk about women's bodies as if they were baby farms!</b>

If I were the king of America and could set policy any way I wanted, that would probably be my line: When the fetus can survive on its own (or at least has a reasonable chance), abortion would be prohibited unless the physical health of the woman or fetus was in danger.

<b>You do know that that magical date is different for every child with a range of probably 4 weeks or more? Draw that line in the sand, Colonel Travis!</b>

As I mentioned earlier, I would not be averse to setting up regulations to prohibit abortions outside the first trimester so long as the physical health of the fetus and mother were not in danger and I think that would be a very reasonable compromise that most people could readily agree to. However, the fanaticism of the pro-life, as well as some in the pro-choice, crowd will probably keep something so reasonable from being enacted.

<b>Do you see any fanaticism in your own position? You see fanaticism everywhere but in your camp....</b>

 

Thanks jcantu!

To get back to the why the "parasite" argument is the wrong argument for the anti-abortion side.

Given that a fetus has human DNA and is expected to develop into a full human there still is a problem because the rights of the woman are then subsumed to the fetus. As I told Mad Max. If I was dying from liver failure I couldn't force him to hook himself up to me so I could share his liver functions. He is within his rights to not let me leach off of him even if it means my death.

As for the case of a woman getting pregnant yes she does have something to do with that but that's why they called them unplanned pregnancies.

If we are to stand on the basis of rights then it totally should be up to the woman to decide whether she chooses to carry the fetus or not as much as any of us have the right to decide to donate an organ or give a blood transfusion that may save someone's life or not.

The far better argument isn't that the fetus is a distinct parasitic organism but that its a child and therefore subject to child protection laws in utero that compel the parents to look after it.

The question to me though is when is it a child and when is it just a mass of cells.

 

A closed neural tube isn't quite a brain nor is an undifferentiated closed tube. Anyway under that definition fetuses with anencephaly would never count since their neural tubes never closed.

What I would like to see is a fetal EEG that could show when neural activity begins. At that point I would feel comfortable saying that consciousness as begun and that mass of cells is an individual human being.

 

I'm going to throw another curve ball into the argument.

The anti-abortion side says that while in utero fetus and embryos are individual humans even though they are attached to and living a parasitic existence off of the mother. The other side says that while they are in the womb they are part of the mother even though they are different genetically from the mother.

Here's a twist on this issue. Lets say a child is born and given up for adoption but ends up needing a liver transplant and its only match is one of the biological parents. We can do partial liver transplants but they are risky. Should the biological parent then be legally compelled to donate some of their liver?

This question is important because then its a situation where the child is born already so we can agree its human but its life requires a risk from a biological parent who has already given up their parental rights. This is similar to the situation of an unwanted pregnancy where a woman may not want to have the child but is put into the situation where without abortion they will have to bring it to term. So it comes down to a matter of whose rights take precedence. The parent's or the child's.

 

There is very little danger to the mother in bringing a child to term. In fact, if doing so poses a significant risk to the life of the mother, I (and most pro life people) would be willing to allow an abortion. Therefor, any medical procedure that puts the parent at significan risk, is not a good analogy for abortion, a forced blood transfusion would be better (nine months of them better still).

Your hooking yourself to MadMax to share his liver function argument is rediculous, so I don['t know why you repeat it. Being pregnant is not the same as having an adult connected to you to leach off of your liver. Women are designed to carry babies to term. It is their biological purpose. People are not designed to share their liver function with other people.

It is true that the right of the mother to not be pregnant (this is never explicitly granted AFAIK, but I think it can be assumed) is subsumed to the the baby. This is not unusual though. Your right to drive down the street is subsumed to the heart attack victim when the ambulance comes up behind you. Your right to free speech is subsumed to the patrons of a crowded theater when you are not allowed to yell "FIRE!" When it is a matter of life and death, for one, and inconvenience for another, we allow that it is okay for someone to lose some of their rights temporarily so that another may live. This is because we value life more than we value peoples rights to not be inconvenienced.

 

Originally posted by Sishir Chang


Given that a fetus has human DNA and is expected to develop into a full human there still is a problem because the rights of the woman are then subsumed to the fetus. As I told Mad Max. If I was dying from liver failure I couldn't force him to hook himself up to me so I could share his liver functions. He is within his rights to not let me leach off of him even if it means my death.

<b>Expected? When was the last time a toaster or a baby goat was born of a human mother?

Why not consider that the rights of the child are on a par with the rights of the mother?

Your liver functon example is off-base. The baby didn't force herself onto the mother. The mother and the father created that situation.

I think it is more properly called nurturing as opposed to leeching. Check with your mother!</b>

As for the case of a woman getting pregnant yes she does have something to do with that but that's why they called them unplanned pregnancies.

<b>Big surprise here: she even had something to do with an unplanned pregnancy most likely.</b>

If we are to stand on the basis of rights then it totally should be up to the woman to decide whether she chooses to carry the fetus or not as much as any of us have the right to decide to donate an organ or give a blood transfusion that may save someone's life or not.

<b>I could agree with this statement if I agreed with your premise that the child has no rights. I think she does. Other laws on our books consider that she does.</b>

The far better argument isn't that the fetus is a distinct parasitic organism but that its a child and therefore subject to child protection laws in utero that compel the parents to look after it.

<b>Now you're gettin' it... although a little love instead of compulsion wouldn't hurt.</b>

The question to me though is when is it a child and when is it just a mass of cells.

<b>Do you really expect to be able to know the unknowable. Err on the side of caution... err on the side of innocent life.</b>