babies in the females body are just gross parasites, seriously, gross.

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Accidents happen even with contraception, in fact very few of them are 100% effective. So does things like 'statuatory rape of a minor', which I'm hoping the original poster isn't making fun of and sincerely hope the girls 16 or older.
As for my pro-choice when it comes to terminating a pregnancy, stay out of my way with the bibles, placards and abuse or you'll have a real cause to complain about homicide.

quote:

Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov Deeply flawed yes, but so are the opposed arguments. Are you suggesting that any human would rationally choose to grow up in a family devoid of love?

+1

I believe that abortion should be available to women, however I think there should be a few restrictions.

I don't really care to go into details on my opinion at the moment, however, I must say that "giving the unborn baby the option to choose life" is a shitty reason to let the 'baby' live.

First of all, it is not a concious thinker, and is no way able to decide whether life is a positive or negative choice, and is unable to decide until it is far too late.

In my opinion though, choosing for a child to bring it into a loveless, unwanting, possibly abusive, neglective environment is, in my opinion, worse on the parents than to abort the life in the first place.

i'd say if the woman is carrying a child, its her choice what she wants to do with it..

and keeping the population down is clearly important

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quote:

Originally posted by astroboy To me robbing someone of "choice" is not a problem in itself. The problem is that in not giving someone a choice with regard to their own life you may be forcing them to undergo an experience that is contrary to their will. A fetus has no will, it only has the potential to develop into something that has a will - a "reasonable creature in being". If the choice involved is something like circumcision, this involves pre-emptively making a decision that will permanently place a reasonable creature in being into a condition that he may not have chosen for himself had he the choice. Here robbing the creature of choice has caused it to undergo an experience against its will, for this reason the removal of choice or free will is wrong in this case. In killing a fetus you are not forcing any reasonable creature in being to undergo any experience, let alone one contrary to its will.

thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaank you.

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quote:

Originally posted by Theresa +1 I believe that abortion should be available to women, however I think there should be a few restrictions. I don't really care to go into details on my opinion at the moment, however, I must say that "giving the unborn baby the option to choose life" is a shitty reason to let the 'baby' live. First of all, it is not a concious thinker, and is no way able to decide whether life is a positive or negative choice, and is unable to decide until it is far too late. In my opinion though, choosing for a child to bring it into a loveless, unwanting, possibly abusive, neglective environment is, in my opinion, worse on the parents than to abort the life in the first place.

i couldnt have say it better myself, abortion should be an option

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abortion as an intelligent option is all well & good, but it shouldn't be used as a secondary contraception. If someones stupid enough not to use any protection or at least be careful (i mean there is the morning after pill too to be safe) then they deserve 18 years of financial commitment.

I deem anything after the first couple of weeks of the second trimester as human and therefore they shouldn't be allowed to have an abortion. To me, it's a fundamental disagreement at what constitutes human which causes the huge debate. The reason that the argument is never resolved is because it's almost impossible to alter someone's definition of human.

Damn, I do tend to write long posts

quote:

Originally posted by astroboy There is ofcourse the problem of defining will and intelligence to comprehend it's environment or what it is undergoing. My stance is that humans have special rights with regards to their will (as opposed to animals) as a result of their intelligence and capacity to comprehend the experiences they undergo. As far as I'm aware for a foetus in the first trimester there is little or no higher brain activity...

Yeah, I think that's the main problem here: the definition of concepts such as will and intelligence, and topics related to philosophy of mind and Being in general.

In the end, the difference between our opinions is a subtle one, and it all comes down to the interpretation of that little brain activity you mentioned that bothers me. Summarising my views on this, I'd consider a foetus a Dasein-like creature¹ in a Heideggerian sense, and therefore, can be subject of a Kantian-like morality... but I admit this is not, at all, the only possible view on this issue (reason why I'm clearly outnumbered here ).

quote:

Originally posted by Arbiter Well that's quite an assumption. If a tomato happens to roll off the cutting board when I'm reaching for the knife am I to assume it has a will to escape being cut?

Well, there's nothing in the structure of a tomato that convinces me that it might have any reasoning one day. A foetus, on the other hand, usually becomes a person.

quote:

Originally posted by Arbiter Also, the level of development is pretty important here. I doubt we'll see a blastula exhibing any behavior that could be conceivably interpreted as "defending itself" anytime soon.

Indeed... but, here, I found an interesting chart:


(taken from Wikipedia on "Abortion").

The 4th week is prior to the first missed menstrual period, and its the development starting at the 5th week that worries me:

5th week

• A notochord forms in the center of the embryonic disk.
  
• A neural groove (future spinal cord) forms over the notochord with a brain bulge at one end.
  
• Heart tubes begin to fuse.
  

6th week

• The embryo measures 4 mm (1/8 inch) in length and begins to curve into a C shape.
  
• Somites, the divisions of the future vertebra, form.
  
• The heart bulges, further develops, and begins to beat in a regular rhythm.
  
• Branchial arches, grooves which will form structures of the face and neck, form.
  
• The neural tube closes.
  
• The ears begin to form as otic pits.
  
• Arm buds and a tail are visible.
  

Like mentioned earlier in this thread, there's no clear cut definition as to when an embryo becomes a "living being", so to speak, but these features I stressed convince me that there is something going on, and I'd be cautious about how I'd define such being.

quote:

Originally posted by Arbiter It would seem to me that the safe side is to protect the rights that clearly do exist, including a woman's right to personal sovereignty, before we start worrying about making guesses about the rights which may or may not exist that an entity of dubious capacity for volition might or might not want to exercise if in fact it's capable of having an opinion on the matter at all.

But there's something that seems to be overlooked here: A women does not have a foetus in the same way she has a liver, or a heart. The fact that it is inside a woman's body does not grant the woman the status of saying that it's her body. Except for rape, there is a direct causality from the actions of both to-be-parents, so these rights you mention might need reviewing, as they seem to view pregnancy similar to the way you see a disease.

quote:

Originally posted by CranberryJuice well i dont agree with you like someone said some people dont have any of these solutions offered by them.....a teenager who has no diploma at all what can she expect even for a job?then i dont think u can always count on parents ....and giving the child away to adoption lira...... well i hope u are aware than only a few kids are lucky and privileged to be given in adoption....a lot of these kids will end up in "host families" (dunno if it's the good word) but these host families can be good and can be bad because they get paid by the state so some of the families just do it for the money and dont care about the kid and in worse cases they just cause him harm so u gotta be more realistic i think why keep a baby if u dont want it ?if u have no desire to raise it and love it? indeed the story u wrote about the raped girl who kept the baby .....it's the first time i heard something like that but i think it's exceptionnal because i rather heard stories of raped girls who aborted ......

The possibility of having a poor life (both on emotional and financial grounds) exists for all of us. The difference here, and which is what I'm trying to stress is that seeing abortion as the only way out is a matter of acting in bad faith: you're already closing all the possible outcomes to the one you judge to be the most probable one.

You had the priviledge of being adopted by a good family, I assume, and the mere fact that it did happen already stresses out the fact that there is an infinite amount of possible outcomes involved.

And, regarding the high school girl scenario, unless she was raped, she did have direct responsability on the origin of this foetus, and you can't think about her as being alone anymore. You can't invade the freedom of a person just because another person couldn't use his/her freedom "wisely".

quote:

Originally posted by CranberryJuice so i dont think the state should force you to decide what u want when it comes to give birth to an another human being and then raise it ....support it because i consider abortion like a right to say no like a kind of freedom offered to women but then again i condemn excesses i condemn abuses but unfortunately when u offer something to people some always abuse of it so that's why its controled but not enough the question of morality .....well morality is something subjective i would say but the question is do moral has to condemn all our actions or at least the whole politic of the state?

The state is not forcing anything. Resorting to reductio ad absurdum, imagine what it would be like to have a 7 year old child and then deciding you can not really raise that kid the way you think is desirable and decide to abort it. Seems non-sense, but it's not much different from your regular abortion.
so can we ever consider it at this time like a full human being with habilities?

quote:

Originally posted by CranberryJuice i dont think so it isnt build yet

Since we can't know for sure, we'd better err on the safe side.

quote:

Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov But cases exist in which neither of those options, nor many of the other ones that could be offered, are feasible. For a single woman already on welfare, possibly with a drug addiction, cast out from anything resembling family, to be able to raise a child is overly optimistic -- especially in an America where the face of abject poverty is a single mother with two kids and two minimum-wage jobs. Again, I'm not arguing that abortion is ever an ideal. But as a last resort, sometimes it is the only rational choice to be made. Now, the longer this decision takes, the less likely I am to support it under any circumstance. I believe that all abortions can and should be conducted within the first trimester, well before any scientist has been able to establish significant signs of life.

I'd agree with you that the later the abortion, the less acceptable it becomes.

And, as for the mother, it's not a matter of being overly optimistic, but it's reality: you can't predict one's future.

quote:

Originally posted by Sunsnail Fetuses defending themselves? Seems interesting.

I've spent an hour writing this so I'm a bit in a hurry... but there are scenes of foetuses trying to scape from intra-uterine devices (although the foetus can't really escape or anything ).

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¹ http://www.iep.utm.edu/h/heidegge.htm#H3
² Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals
by Immanuel Kant

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quote:

Originally posted by Lira I've spent an hour writing this so I'm a bit in a hurry...

Holy mother Christ I believe it. I've successfully begat an intelligent c0r thread.

quote:

Originally posted by Lira A women does not have a foetus in the same way she has a liver, or a heart. The fact that it is inside a woman's body does not grant the woman the status of saying that it's her body.

And under what right does the state claim ownership of a womans body. Tread really carefully here because I'm not exactly enamoured with the idea of being a baby-farm with no rights.
Better yet, lets solve the problem with preventative measures instead of this and reduce things like abortion to being a rare medical procedure used in emergencies. So, you take this male contraceptive pill or be fitted with an implant which has slow release contraceptive and we'll avoid the whole problem of accidents.
Better yet, lets start up a licencing scheme for people to have kids.
We'll do a full family background history of heart disease, diabetes, MS and anything else, bit of testing for drugs, alcoholism and genetic defects and if you make the grade you get to use your nuts, if you dont, the state can have you spayed because its not quite the same as having a liver or heart, theyre a vestigal organ at best and you'll be a perfectly functional and hard working member of society.

Do you see where this is leading?

quote:

And, as for the mother, it's not a matter of being overly optimistic, but it's reality: you can't predict one's future.

Medical technology has come a ways to the point where they can pick up a fair amount of problems in late stages which will affect the quality of life of someone born with them. Life is fairly hard enough as it is without being handicapped and we havent even started on social upbringing which the child may be being brought up in.
Unwanted kids face just the same challenges as a handicapped kid, theyre so far behind the 8-ball from the start its just not worth it, even from a moral perspective which I dont really want to touch on.
Because ultimately, some stupid politician is going to draw a line and my faith in governments to maintain roads is bad enought without having one of them, who are essentially elected because theyre popular, rather than educated or competent, to decide our reproductive futures.

quote:

Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov It depends entirely on circumstance in my opinion. How it happened, how far along she is, etc. I agree that it should never be an immediate fall-back option, but I believe there are cases that warrant it.

+1