Well now, that depends entirely on which side is correct. Remember that "the majority" are responsible for George Bush being the current president of the USA.

True...but let's not pull that monumental blunder into this.

Is it fair to be outnumbered by the bastards?
Is it fair to decide whether or the child so close to existence from attaining it?
Is it fair to force a woman to live with a child they do not want/can not have?
Is it fair to give life to a child and then force them to do nought but waste it?

Life's not fair.

As I said already , the people who say "well if you don't have an abortion then don't have sex" should be shot out of a cannon. I'm talking about you, sweetiepie, or whatever your name is. There's this thing called Contraception that stops that. Also you are implying theat a human life should be used as a punishment. That's sick and unethical.

No, Mas, life's not fair. And it seems stupid that the morons dictate. I am talking specifically about the president of the US and not pro-lifers just there.

If I killed you, would it be the same as a potential ***life form?

*** note, POTENTIAL, as in NOT ALIVE. If something isn't alive, IT CAN'T DIE.

Define "alive". By its most basic definition the developing baby is indeed alive. If by "alive" you mean "sentient" I refer you to my argument regarding coma victims. Can I kill a comatose person because they're currently only potentially sentient?

*Hugs Archaon*

Yay for interesting hypothetical situations!

By medical terms, yes. By being able to form ideas and think, no it is not alive.


There is a large difference between an empty shell then a living, thinking person now isn't there?

I don't post much here, just for quotes & stuff. This will probably make a lot of people dislike me, but I'm willing to risk that. I am 100% Pro-Choice.

I believe that whatever the circumstance, people have the right to choose what to do with their body. If they have sex and get pregnant, and choose to have an abortion, in what way does that affect other people? It makes them sick? Then don't listen to people if they tell you they've had an abortion. Or better yet, the person probably wouldn't tell you.

I do not see how it is killing a baby. A fetus cannot compose music, a fetus cannot create art, a fetus cannot sing or dance or speak. A fetus is a group of cells joined together. Yes, it does grow. But would you welcome it into a world where there is such a high population, and where mothers give their children up for adoption when in reality they are not educated or raised in a healthy, happy home? Would you like to add to the list of children who never have a chance at life because of the corrupt foster care system?

I am a firm believer that a woman's body is her own. She has a concious; she has rights on what she wants to do with her body. Every day she will have to live with the choices she makes. Not anyone else. Only you have to bear your guilt; therefore, it is a personal choice on what a woman should do with her body.


That is my opinion. If it conflicts with yours, I understand that. And I respect your opinion, too.

In all fairness, I haven't met any babies with such abilities. Of course, when I think of speak, random sounds being repeated without any understanding of their meaning isn't what I have in mind.

So what you're saying is that it isn't sentient. Thus I refer you to the point below.



But a coma victim isn't a "thinking" person. They do not think. They do not "form ideas". They have no perception of the outside world whatsoever. Therefore they are not sentient. Therefore if you're going to use the argument that killing a foetus isn't murder because it isn't sentient, you're also going to have to agree that killing a come victim isn't murder for the same reason.



In what way does it affect other people if you kill a lonely hobo? It doesn't. Does that mean it's alright to do it?



And neither can a coma victim. So I suppose we can kill them.



Would you like someone to come along and kill you because they don't think you're going to have a good life?

Didn't think so.



Theft is a personal choice. Murder is a personal choice. Rape is a personal choice. You have to live with the guilt of those, if any. Should they also be allowed, then?

Murder and rape victims actually exist in the eyes of the law. Foetuses, as far as I know, don't. This would make abortion a crime with no victims.

The law as it stands at the moment is far from infallible.

Why would the law have sections that included apparent non-entities?

What I am saying is, that it shouldn't affect people who are not directly involved. Your "hobo theory" is meaningless to me, because I pretty much think that people should have the right to choose. It's all based on one's own ethical point of view; as in, what you think is right or wrong. I think that there are so many circumstances in each case of whether to abort or not that a person should have to make the choice themself.

What if I think murder is right?

Wait, I didn't say half of that stuff.

And a mother, is more than inconvienienced. She obviously isn't mature/ready for a baby. People who want a woman to carry a baby she doesn't want for nine months, then labor for 6-9 hours and endure the pain of childbirth then give the baby up? That is really, really unfair.

I didn't say it was a small inconvenience, but an inconvenience is what it is, at the end of the day.



And you're saying it is less unfair to deny a baby to have a life?

You can't compare inconvenience to death.

You do realise that not having sex denies babies to have a life, yes? Masturbation denies lives. In fact, having a child tends to deny tens of thousands of other. They are all potentials, what's so special about a potential that got one ovum and 4 weeks closer?

Don't forget menstruation as a life-denier!

Perhaps the fact that it exists?

EDIT: In any case, not having sex isn't the same thing as killing it yourself, the same way that not actively rescuing a drowning man isn't the same as holding him under the water.

Sperm exists, the ova of every menstration exists.

edit: Although, in your example, those are held at the same low level by the moral standards of most.

edit again: Also, masturbation is prohibited by some that disagree with abortion.

Yeah? Well I'll tell you right now that they're wrong. Murdering a person is not the same thing as not going out of your way to save them, nor should they even be compared.

That sperm cell could've been Beethoven!!! That ova could've discovered the cure to AIDS!



Is it okay for a pregnant woman to passively kill her fetus (ie, not going out of her way to save it), such as by engaging in extreme sports and other dangerous activities and drinking and smoking heavily?

double post

In return, I'll tell you right now that stopping someone from ever living is not the same as ending someone's life.

Yeah. See, the difference is, until sperm and egg are combined, they aren't going to develop into anything. You therefore aren't denying anything because there's nothing there to be denied. You can't apply the same logic to something that does not exist.



Not the same thing. If the woman smokes and drinks, she's the one doing the harm to the foetus. Therefore, she is the one responsible for the harm.

I am not responsible for someone drowning unless I myself am doing it.


Mas: But you aren't stopping it from ever living. Because it IS ALIVE. It exists, and it lives. The ONLY relevant difference between it and a baby that has been born is that it is not yet sentient, and for that I refer you yet again to my coma victim argument.

What exactly is your definition of alive?

The scientific definition. The one that states that bacteria are alive. The one that doesn't have anything to do with sentience, which is an issue I've already covered.

But it has the potential to combine with a sperm/egg cell. If egg x and sperm y when combined together will create the person who discovers the cure for aids, then by flushing sperm y down the toilet, you have destroyed that potential. Millions more people will die of AIDS now!

You are denying something; the potential to combine and form a zygote.



Aren't egg and sperm cells also alive by that definition?

Sure, it has the potential. But like I said already said, that is not the same thing as actively ceasing the life of a being that exists.



No. I don't think you'll find any scientific dictionary claiming that individual human cells are living creatures. Living matter, perhaps, but that's not the same thing.

This one minus the point 5, then?

1. Growth
2. Metabolism, consuming, transforming and storing energy/mass; growing by absorbing and reorganizing mass; excreting waste
3. Motion, either moving itself, or having internal motion
4. Reproduction, the ability to create entities that are similar to, yet seperate from, itself
5. Response to stimuli - the ability to measure properties of its surrounding environment, and act upon certain conditions.

edit: Yes, this one declares impotent people and mules non-living and fires and stars living.

I'm sure you're perfectly aware of the problem with that argument.

First of all, it is not "minus the point 5". A developing foetus will respond to stimulus.

Secondly, it does not declare impotent people non-living. You haven't worded it properly. "Possessing the means to reproduce" is not the same thing as "being able to reproduce". Of course you don't stop being alive if you are rendered impotent.

Third, they are not "set in stone" rules. They are not meant to be taken word for word as the be-all and end-all of what is and is not life. Plants do not move, per se. That doesn't mean they aren't alive. They're open to interpretation.

Plants do move in relation to certain stimuli, well, very slowly. If you stuck a plant in a box with one clear side where light can enter, it will gradually move toward the light, this is known as phototrophism.

With that logic, Archaeon, if an ovum and a sperm are only living matter, rather than living creatures, wouldn't a zygote be classed as the same? The difference of course being that a zygote is potentially a living creature, but is at the moment mere matter.

It doesn't "move" towards the light, exactly. It grows in the direction of the light.



A zygote is a seperate entity. It does not exist as part of another being. Therefore it can be classed as having life, rather than being living matter.

Okay... *takes a breath*

As someone who has had an abortion before, I think everyone is, metaphorically speaking, throwing pebbles at a skyscraper.

If a girl accidently becomes pregnant (example: contraceptive failed) and she is obviously not ready for a child, I believe she has every right to abort her fetus.

When I went to the clinic to have my abortion, I was turning the idea over in my head, laying on the little bed with my legs in the stirrups. My pregnancy was my fault, and therefore I should be the responsible one and decide what to do with the fetus inside me. I could either carry it around for ten months as a parasite, spend hours in the hospital as I'm slowly ripped apart, and then struggle to find a better job and attempt to support the child...or I could accept the fact that I'd made a mistake and fix it. Needless to say, I chose the latter; I made a choice.

The fetus inside me had no brain. It was simply a bundle of cells. If you call a bundle of cells a living human being, then I suppose the bacteria and amoebas in the lakes and rivers are human beings as well, right? Quick, go save them, the fish are eating them!

People are killed every day. Every ten minutes someone out there dies for some reason or another. You won't weep for them but you'll weep for a bundle of cells that can't even breathe? Please, don't make me laugh.

I think everyone is blowing this whole abortion thing way out of proportion. In the end it comes to two things: choice and free will. Each and every one of us was born with free will and the right to make our own choices in life. The outlawing of abortion violates our natural rights because a bunch of old, white, dry men feel sorry for a bundle of cells nestled inside a girl that would cause her a world of pain and suffering if she was forced to birth the child and take care of it. Men should not be making such choices in the ranks of the government -- women should. Women go through the menstrual cycles, women are the ones at risk, women are the ones squirting out kids because men tell them to, women are the one that raise those kids. Men just sit around and get more women pregnant. After all, they don't get pregnant, what do they have to worry about?

Let's face it. There's LOTS of things in the world that nobody likes, and abortion is just one of those things that we can't fix just by groaning and moaning about it. It's a sad truth, but what can we do about it? Keep picketing the president with pictures of dead babies? Yet again...it's like throwing pebbles at a skyscraper.

Bacteria not human because they do not have human genes. They do not have human DNA, human chromosomes, human anything. They are living beings, but they are not human. Foetuses are.



Did I say I was weeping for foetuses? I have no recollection of saying anything like that. I do not mourn the death of a foetus any more than I mourn the death of every other person I do not know that dies.

That still doesn't make it alright to kill them.



Inconvenience < Death. Said that already. You can't kill for your own convenience. We've been over this. "World of pain and suffering" is a complete exaggeration. It is not constant torture. At best it is discomfort with occasional bouts of pain. Sure, the actual birthing might be extremely painful, but that's over in a matter of hours. I'd hardly use "world of pain and suffering" to describe that, especially since the baby CAN BE GIVEN AWAY AFTER IT IS BORN.

Example. Suppose I work in a place where my boss treats me like dirt. There's not a thing I can do about this because if I complain about it, I'll get fired. So I have to put up with it.

Is it OK to murder my boss so that I no longer have to go through that? No, it is not. Because it is wrong to kill for your own convenience.




I'll tell you what that would lead to. Biased opinions. If, as you say, women in government made decisions solely based on what they have to go through during pregnancy, it'd be ignoring the core of the issue - namely, whether or not abortion is ethical. Therefore, any decisions made in this manner would be biased and invalid.




Irrelevant. We're debating whether or not abortion should be allowed, not what can be done to stop it.

But sperm and ova contain human DNA. So by saying that fetuses should be kept alive because of their human DNA is like saying that beating off is a waste of life.

No it isn't. As I have already stated, sperm and ova are not seperate entities and therefore do not possess life.

There is a difference, actually. Namely that in all likely-hood, any fetus less than 29 weeks old does not have a nervous system that is developed enough to feel pain. So while it's still eliminating a life or potential life (babies that are being aborted today may very well have been wasted lives if they hadn't been aborted; you never know), it's not causing it any real pain. However, your boss is a grown man or woman who has a fully developed nervous system that would probably cause them immense pain if you were to murder them.

That would be the difference.

source: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/24/health/2....html?th&emc=th

That's not a valid argument. There are ways to kill a person without them experiencing any pain. If I were to drug him beforehand, he wouldn't feel a thing. That still doesn't mean it is any more acceptable to murder him.

On a certain moral code, you'd complain and then try to have the boss in court for unfair dismissal.

Doesn't fit well in the context of the comparison, but hey.

edit: Now that I think about it, it would be like going to court and trying to not have Roe vs Wade thrown out of the window, only with greater bribery from the opposing party.

There's a difference between someone naturally being incapable of feeling pain, and a murderer making a death painless. Your boss still has a functioning nervous system, and that is the only difference I am referring to.

And I never said it was acceptable to murder anyone (though I don't have a problem with abortion). I was simply pointing out the difference.

There certainly is a difference, but I don't see what your point is. Neither party would be experiencing any pain as a result of their deaths. Why is the fact that an adult has a nervous system important when they are not feeling anything to begin with? It wouldn't make a difference if they did or they didn't. In either case you are ending a life.

At the moment, I don't remember what my point was, so I forfeit this round. I'll totally tell you if I remember what it was though.

The difference is that the fetus has no nervous system and therefore couldn't feel any pain anyway. A person is capable of feeling pain. That is the difference, I think.

...right. Like I said, I understand what the difference is. I just don't get what it's supposed to be arguing.

A newborn child cannnot compose music, a newborn child cannot create art, a newborn child cannot sing or dance or speak. A newborn child is just a baby.

Does that mean that you should kill a newborn too?

Damn straight you should. And then be allowed to feast upon their delicious innards.

Pyro, you always know just what to say.

<3