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Grex > Agora56 > #125: Kludge Report Part C -- Die, You Little Black Babies | |
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| 25 new of 331 responses total. |
drew
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response 36 of 331:
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Feb 24 22:04 UTC 2006 |
Re #21: Men already *are* liable for all
that.
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richard
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response 37 of 331:
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Feb 24 22:27 UTC 2006 |
jep said:
"My order of preference on the social issue of abortion is:
1. Constitutional Amendment illegalizing abortion
2. National law illegalizing abortion
3. Overthrow of Roe v Wade, returning the issue to the states to decide
4. Restrictions on techniques, drugs, doctors, hospitals, etc. "
1. A Constitutional Amendment will never happen, you'd never get 3/4's of
the legislatures to ratify it. It is impossible.
2. National law illegalizing abortion will never happen, every person in
the House of Reps has to get elected every two years, and they won't vote
for a law that guarantees they lose the votes of most of the women in
their district. These people will choose getting re-elected over
principle every time, they are politicians.
3. Could happen, but if States banned abortion, they'd have to pay
staggering extra costs in court proceedings and other such in enforcing
such a ban. Which would mean huge tax increases. Even a conservative
might not vote to outlaw abortion if its going to mean huge tax increases.
4. Would be hard to enforce in the courts, as legislators can't deem
themselves more qualified than doctors to decide what techniques should be
restricted.
/
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edina
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response 38 of 331:
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Feb 24 23:08 UTC 2006 |
I always love how it's an "either or" situation. Like, either we will have
legal abortion or not. The end.
I sometimes think it would be far helpful to *reduce* the number of abortions,
then hopefully work at eradicating them.
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tod
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response 39 of 331:
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Feb 24 23:16 UTC 2006 |
Maybe folks are prolifers cuz they are afraid or just dont know the cause of
pregnancy.
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happyboy
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response 40 of 331:
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Feb 24 23:41 UTC 2006 |
why do you hate baby jesus, tod?
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scholar
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response 41 of 331:
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Feb 24 23:58 UTC 2006 |
i too equate abortion and infanticide, except i think both are fine.
just don't show pictures of them to me, though, 'cause they're icky. :(
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slynne
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response 42 of 331:
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Feb 25 00:15 UTC 2006 |
I used to be anti-abortion but pro-choice but I have changed my thoughts
on the matter. I think my opinions were clouded by my own confusion
about having kids. I thought I might want them and wasnt in a position
to have them so I guess it just felt wrong to me for someone to abort
some potential child. Now I find that my feelings have changed and I am
neutral about abortions. I dont think of them as a killing a child
because I dont see a fetus as being a child. So, I dont think having an
abortion is morally wrong. I do, however, feel strongly that women
should have the right to have any medical procedures performed on their
bodies that they would like. I have always felt that way though, even
when I thought that elective abortions when the health of the woman
wasnt an issue were wrong.
As for the "pro-life" crowd...well, I dont know what to say. I think
that some of them are reasonable people who really believe that a fetus
is a person and should have rights as such. I have found that those
people usually also support strong welfare programs for poor women and
support easy access to birth control as well as any number of other
programs designed to make life better for women and children AFTER they
are born. A good number of those people are also against the death
penalty because they honestly believe that killing a human being is
wrong. I disagree with those people but I find that I can have some
respect for their position.
But there are a whole bunch of other pro-lifers who really seem to be
interested in using anti-abortion laws to punish women for having sex.
Those people typically have no interest in what happens to children
after they are born. Ironically, if those children grow up to be
criminals, they support killing them as adults with capital punishment.
Those are also the people who are very opposed to any kind of birth
control and who say things like "I oppose abortion except in cases of
rape or incest" I find that view morally repugnant and I have to admit
that I think of such people as evil.
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mary
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response 43 of 331:
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Feb 25 12:40 UTC 2006 |
I think, in general, such people have deeply shameful feelings
about sex. It's a difficult area for them. And they transfer
(project) their feelings onto others.
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keesan
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response 44 of 331:
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Feb 25 13:45 UTC 2006 |
I don't think fetuses should have more rights than baby or adult humans, which
anti-abortionists want them to have. I am reading an interesting book about
family dynamics from a genetic and biological viewpoint. Fetuses are
parasites that have bypassed the mother's immune system. For their own good,
but the harm of the mother, they will cause gestational diabetes (to get more
sugar from the mother) or preeclampsia (high blood pressure gets them a larger
share of the blood). If they overdo it, both fetus and mother die. Fetuses
produce a hormone that prevents the immune system from rejecting them. Down
syndrome fetuses produce twice as much as normal and therefore prevent the
rejection that would normally occur in cases of chromosomal abnormalities.
About half of fertilized eggs don't implant in younger women, and a much
higher proportion (90%?) in older women, because the mother detects that they
are genetically defective, but she often misses defects, particularly the sort
that don't show up before birth (such as lack of a brain, or ability to
breathe, swallow, etc.).
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nharmon
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response 45 of 331:
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Feb 25 14:35 UTC 2006 |
I have no idea what the point of #44 was, but the notion that anti-
abortionists want fetuses to have more rights than babies or adult
human beings is just plain wrong. They want fetuses to have the same
rights as people, because they believe fetuses are people. Now, you can
argue that a fetus is not a person, and if you include from facts then
people might believe you, but misrepresenting the opposing side
benefits nobody. You certainly wouldn't stand for someone saying gay
people want more rights than straight people.
And as for fetuses being parasites, I think thats a pretty extremist
viewpoint. For something to be parasitic, it can not benefit the host.
Seeing that a good hunk of our biology is geared towards reproduction,
maintaining the species seems pretty important to our bodies.
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crimson
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response 46 of 331:
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Feb 25 14:57 UTC 2006 |
Is the first sentence of #43 intended to read "such people have feelings about
sex that ought to cause them deep shame"? If not, how is it supposed to read?
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marcvh
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response 47 of 331:
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Feb 25 16:30 UTC 2006 |
Re #44, in general we do not grant human beings the right to hook
themselves up to somebody else's circulatory system in order to draw
sustenance from it. If my kidneys failed and the only available remedy
was for me to connect my bloodstream up to Nathan's so that his kidneys
would perform double-duty, I suppose it would be nice for Nathan to
agree to such a thing but it would be illegal to force him. If we were
already hooked up in this fashion, Nathan would have the legal right to
be disconnected from me if he wanted. If that resulted in my death then
that's unfortunate but it wouldn't make Nathan, nor the doctor who
disconnected the tubes, a murderer.
The pro-life view seems to create an exception to this general
principle, and accord embryos the "special right" to draw sustenance
from the body of a nonconsenting person. If this is not a special right
for embryos then we are left with the question of who else gets this
right and what its impacts are with respect to questions like whether it
should be lawful to compel, say, the donation of blood, marrow, and
organs. At this point is is not lawful to do this, and as far as I know
few people in the pro-life movement have proposed changing this even
though it could save a lot of lives.
The "rape or incest" exceptions are interesting mainly because they
provide insight into the reasoning one uses. If you are pro-life
because you believe an unborn child has rights and abortion is murder,
then you should oppose such exceptions because murder is worse than rape
or incest and compounding one crime by committing a greater one is not
an acceptable remedy. On the other hand, if you are pro-life because
abortion allows women to escape their rightful punishment for being
sluts, then you should favor rape and incest exceptions because they
mean that it wasn't the woman's fault she got pregnant.
Polling data shows us that, among pro-lifers, roughly 2/3rds of them
favor the rape and incest exception to an abortion prohibition, while
the other third think that abortion should only be permitted to save the
woman's life or never. Note that this is polling them on their personal
opinion about abortion, not what political compromises they would be
willing to make in order to get a law enacted. I haven't yet found any
good alternative to the conclusion that 2/3rds of pro-lifers are
primarily motivated by the desire to punish sluts.
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nharmon
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response 48 of 331:
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Feb 25 17:33 UTC 2006 |
Your argument might be correct about the people who say life begins at
fertilization, but my opposition to abortion is when it occurs late
term. Since in cases of rape and incest the pregnancy could have been
terminated early, I find those exceptions unnecessary. Abortion in the
late term is inhumane. I think this is prett easy to see when you have
to convince yourself that its not really a life, and that those who
oppose it are morally bankrupt in order to live with yourself.
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marcvh
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response 49 of 331:
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Feb 25 17:47 UTC 2006 |
I'm only talking about pro-lifers. If you think that early-term
elective abortions should be legal then you're not pro-life.
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keesan
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response 50 of 331:
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Feb 25 17:50 UTC 2006 |
Late term abortions are often done because a genetic defect is not detected
until then. In many cases the infant would die shortly after birth. Birth
endangers the mother. However, so do late term abortions.
Who should pay for the maintenance of defective babies, the mother who wanted
to abort the baby, or the society that prevented her from doing so?
Nathan, if a premature baby, weighing say 5 lb, could only be kept alive by
being hooked up to someone's bloodstream for 2 months, would you volunteer?
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rcurl
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response 51 of 331:
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Feb 25 18:06 UTC 2006 |
That's near to what the Supreme Court concluded in Roe vs Wade. Not that
late term abortion is inhumane, of course, but just that it can be made
illegal.
"The Court ruled that the state cannot restrict a woman's right to an abortion
during the first trimester, the state can regulate the abortion procedure
during the second trimester "in ways that are reasonably related to maternal
health," and in the third trimester, demarcating the viability of the fetus,
a state can choose to restrict or even to proscribe abortion as it sees fit."
(from the Wikipedia)
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nharmon
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response 52 of 331:
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Feb 25 19:03 UTC 2006 |
Ok Sindi, then would you support a law that only allowed late-term
abortions if it is likely the infant would not survive birth, or for
very long after birth? I think I would if the procedure was modified to
treat the infant as a person and not a pound of flesh.
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richard
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response 53 of 331:
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Feb 26 01:40 UTC 2006 |
If Roe were overturned, and congress passed a federal law making
abortion illegal, you would see abortions treated as a capital crime
like any other murder. Meaning that if you support the death penalty
for anyone who commits murder, you logically must then support a
pregnant mother getting the death penalty if she's had an abortion.
Or are you going to give life in prison to a woman who has an abortion
because she's been raped by a close relative, or her life was in danger
if she'd given birth?
The point is that it is EASY to be pro-life when you don't have to deal
with the consequences of that position, and enforcing laws that would
outlaw it. Until you have to start throwing women in jail as "baby
killers" Until you start having to force women suspected of having had
abortions to submit to medical testing to try and prove it, so they can
be jailed.
Being pro-life is one thing, but abortion being illegal just wouldn't
work as a practical matter.
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kingjon
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response 54 of 331:
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Feb 26 01:47 UTC 2006 |
If I had my way, *performing* an abortion would be included in the definition
of the crime of infanticide; someone seeking an abortion would be in the eyes
of the law on the level of someone who hires a gang to kill someone. The mother
would only be charged with the infanticide herself if she performed the
abortion herself.
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richard
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response 55 of 331:
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Feb 26 01:55 UTC 2006 |
If you hire a hit man to commit a murder, you can get charged with that
murder. In the case of murder, you do not have to have held the murder
weapon in your hand and actually have done the act, to get charged with
the crime.
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nharmon
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response 56 of 331:
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Feb 26 02:00 UTC 2006 |
Richard says it is easy to be pro-life when you don't have to deal with
the consequences of that position. I might also add that it is equally
as easy to be pro-choice. This is why a lot of people have to dehumanize
pre-born infants otherwise morality and your conscience stop jiving with
your politics.
IMHO, Intact D&X is murder. Taking plan B is not.
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richard
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response 57 of 331:
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Feb 26 02:08 UTC 2006 |
Of course its easy to be pro-choice because with that position, you
aren't required to pass and enforce laws to prevent something from
happening. And you aren't required to raise taxes to build more jails
to house all those women and doctors you plan to arrest.
Also there is no such thing as a "pre-born infant", that is more bull
from the pro-life side. An infant is a human being who has been born,
by definition, you can't be "pre-born"
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kingjon
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response 58 of 331:
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Feb 26 02:15 UTC 2006 |
And the idea that an infant is only a human being that has been born is a
falsehood put about by the pro-choice side. :)
(By that definition, *I* -- along with every living human being over the age of
0 -- am an infant. I protest! :})
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slynne
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response 59 of 331:
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Feb 26 02:26 UTC 2006 |
Just out of curiosity, nharmon, do you know the circumstances where a
D&X is likely to be performed?
I think that it is a procedure used most often in cases where the fetus
has a disease called hydrocephalus. It is a condition where fluid builds
in the brain, causing the head to enlarge. The fetus is alive but will
not live for more than a few hours at most after birth. The head of the
fetus in this case is enlarged to the point where a vaginal birth is not
possible. The options are essentially, a C-Section which is VERY
invasive and which has a lot of risks or a D&X where the baby is
delivered vaginally by collapsing the head (and killing the fetus). This
procedure is much much better for the health of the mother than a
C-section. The outcome is essentially the same except in the latter
case, the fetus dies a couple of hours sooner.
It isnt like women are sitting around with healthy pregnancies going
"Shoot, I've been pregnant for eight and a half months, I cant take it
anymore, GIVE me a D and X!"
Ok, ok, at least one of my friends has said that but it was a hot summer
and I am sure everyone will be happy to know that she gave birth to a
healthy girl three weeks later
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slynne
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response 60 of 331:
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Feb 26 02:38 UTC 2006 |
Hmmm. I did some digging and I was eventually able to find the website
of an abortion clinic that will do elective third trimester abortions.
However, I would be very surprised if they have a big demand for their
services.
I would support laws that prohibited third trimester abortions unless
the health of the mother were at stake except that I think those might
delay appropriate medical action in some cases if the parties were
worried about which side of the law a particular procedure might fall.
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