Abortion: Poll and Discussion

[WillowIX]

1) I´m pro-choice.
2) I do not believe abortion should be standard treatment and I think more information could lower the number of young girls getting pregnant. Abortion should be offered as "if everything else failed" treatment, not as a contraceptive. I agree with Attalus that there should be mandatory counseling. The possibility of adoption should be discussed. But abortion shuold be available. Legalised abortions might also eradicate the illegal abortions.
3) Not really.
4) Of course rape victims should be offered abortion although counseling is more important at first.
5) I´m not all that fond of death penalty. I can not offer a comparison between abortion and death penalty since abortion should be done before a certain week (this would of course bring forth a discussion about when a fetus is alive so let´s stay away from that).

[Attalus]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: Wow. Surely there are some pro-lifers out there.

Oh, yeah, wait'll Cerek and Yorick see this thread.

[Timber Loftis]

WillowIX, I think the notion of when life begins is not foreign to this discussion, nor should it be ignored.

Legally, you cannot have an abortion after the 2nd trimester. Now, often people think that means Roe v. Wade stands for the proposition that a life does not begin until then, or that everything is all wrapped up in the "viability" of the fetus. Generally this is wrong. Roe v. Wade stands for the proposition that the 2nd/3rd trimester cutoff was what 9 Justices could agree on in the 70s.

[RevRuby]

1. How you voted (of course)

PROLIFE!!!!! ("prolife" all around is more than abortion so perhaps anti-abortion would have been better)

2. Why

because i am pro life, all lives deserve to live.

3. Whether that conflicts with your religion's stance on the issue

being a witch, currently anyway (long story!) i believe in "an ye harm none do what ye will" in other words DON'T KILL! and many other parts of the 10 commandments that don;t have to dow ith the hebrew god

4. Whether your views change with extenuating circumstances (e.g. you do not support abortion but would support it for rape and incest victims, especially when they are young, or in the cases where the mother's life is in danger).

mother life in danger- if the baby has a chance that is an individual choice, does mom wish t o live or die, and she chooses.

rape and incest- personally (on the rape thing i don;t think incest will happen to me anytime soon, being happily married and all)i wouldn't. probably give it up for adoption, but i wouldn't kill it

5. (just for s*ts and giggles) Whether or not you support the death penalty and how, if at all, you see that relative to your abortion stance.

umm...prolife, anti kill? nuff said?

[Cerek the Barbaric]

You're a brave soul, Timber. But I agree that the level of maturity should allow this discussion to proceed with a relative amount of calm and civility.

I voted Pro-Life (yeah, I know - big surprise). I disagree with abortion because of my religious views. The fetus has a discernible heartbeat at the age of 7 weeks. After that point, you are no longer talking about "potential life" (in my opinion, of course). If there is a heartbeat, there is life - pure and simple.

Now for the surprise twist. I do NOT endorse making abortions illegal. [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img] Just because I disagree with the mother's decision based on my personal morals and values does NOT give me the right to FORCE her to comply with those values. I do have a right to protest in front of the clinic, if I were so inclined (but I'm not). However, I do NOT have the right to lay down in front of a car to prevent somebody from going into the clinic. They have just as much right to use the clinic as I have to oppose it.

As Attalus already pointed out, women who want to have an abortion WILL have an abortion - whether it is legal or not. Since that is the case, I would prefer that the procedure be done in a safe, clinical environment.

Does that conflict with my religious morals? Absolutely. But that's the beauty of being human...we are complex individuals and have to weigh the merits of individual issues based on our own ethical standards. I disagree with abortion from a religious standpoint, but I would never support making abortions illegal.

Do I support the death penalty? Absolutely, I've made that quite clear in the appropriate threads. Doesn't that conflict with my Pro-Life choice? Not at all.

The death penalty is applied to someone who has made a deliberate decision to break the laws of society and kill another person. A fetus is the very definition of a harmless innocent and could not harm another person even if it tried.

[RevRuby]

amusingly enough in pa and i'm sure most states it's illegal to kill a baby past 26 weeks gestation. in other words, don't punch a preggo woman in the belly. anyway my belief is that life starts at conception. we were all there once, we were all once concieved. that is creation...ok i'm done, i hope i'm not tempted to post here again..i don;t wanna say something to get in trouble....

[WillowIX]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: WillowIX, I think the notion of when life begins is not foreign to this discussion, nor should it be ignored. Legally, you cannot have an abortion after the 2nd trimester. Now, often people think that means Roe v. Wade stands for the proposition that a life does not begin until then, or that everything is all wrapped up in the "viability" of the fetus. Generally this is wrong. Roe v. Wade stands for the proposition that the 2nd/3rd trimester cutoff was what 9 Justices could agree on in the 70s.

But what is life? That´s the issue. A fetus gets its nutrition from it´s mother. Can it be regarded as a live organism without its own metabolism? It might be difficult to consider a one cell fetus alive, but how many cell divisions does it take? IMO it´s impossible to set a line for this since fetal development differs in every pregancy. During my pregnancies I always thought about "my child" during all nine months. Of course I believe there needs to be a "dead line" but I don´t think a court can set it.

TL, the reason I wrote that this discussion perhaps should be excluded was that since you started this in a numbered questionnaire, feelings might stay cooler when keeping it as a such.

Cerek, I may not agree with it, but I really like your post. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 01-27-2003, 03:36 PM: Message edited by: WillowIX ]

[Timber Loftis]

Fair enough, Willow. But, on the when does life begin issue, I'll state it begins, IMHO (and not ascribing it to anyone else) when there is discernible brain activity. If we base it on heartbeat, there are issues with those who are in a permanent "vegetative" state - and with other things in this world of cloning capabilities. I think you must think to be "alive" as a human. MHO.

As with the fetus, I think whenever that brain acitity beginning is, that would be the point at which to cutoff abortion IF we are giving the fetus the same rights as a living/out-of-the-womb person.

Yes, it is true that in MOST states, you can stab a pregnant woman, killing the fetus, and be charged for murder even though she was outside the abortion clinic intending to abort the fetus that very day. The law is always a bit slow in catching up to science, and especially on an issue as tricky as this often inadvertantly results in weird conclusions.

But, the "choice" issue for the law is comparative: as I said, the Roe v. Wade justices didn't think that a fetus in the 2nd trimester was not "alive." Rather, at that point, they felt the woman's right to choose would still "trump" any right the fetus had, whether "alive" or not. The guy who stabs the pregnant woman has NO rights vis-a-vis the fetus, whereas the mother does. Now, that's crystal clear, right. [img]graemlins/awcrap.gif[/img] Well, at least I tried.

Cerek, great post, and I think (no offense) you would fall into that category of people whose various moral views lead them to seemingly inconsistent conclusions on these issues. But, it made perfect sense to me.

[WillowIX]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: Fair enough, Willow. But, on the when does life begin issue, I'll state it begins, IMHO (and not ascribing it to anyone else) when there is discernible brain activity. If we base it on heartbeat, there are issues with those who are in a permanent "vegetative" state - and with other things in this world of cloning capabilities. I think you must think to be "alive" as a human. MHO. As with the fetus, I think whenever that brain acitity beginning is, that would be the point at which to cutoff abortion IF we are giving the fetus the same rights as a living/out-of-the-womb person.

My exact thought and belief TL. Although I wouldn´t go as far as "think". Brain activity does not equal thinking. Going somewhat off topic I also believe that deciding time of death on the time of heart failure is wrong. I like the European(?), I know it is true for some European countries, method of desciding time of death depending on brain activity. Of course this is not always true since people with no brain activity have been revived. Still I find it more accurate than heart ativity.

[Rokenn]

1. Pro-choice.
2. Even if abortion was illegal they still would be performed. The only difference would be that the rich could just fly to a foreign country to get a safe and legal abortion, while the poor would get butchered in a unregulated back-ally clinic.
3. I'm an atheist.
4. In all these listed cases the abortion should be funded by the state if the victim can not afford it.
5. I oppose the death penalty as the only purpose it serves is for retribution and as a society we need to move beyond that.

[ 01-27-2003, 04:15 PM: Message edited by: Rokenn ]