View on abortion

[zeb1094]

That's the problem. Just because it is IN her body, doesn't mean that it BELONGS to her, to do with as she pleases. A 12 week old fetus is a sovereign person with the basic right to live. To kill such an innocent, in which case you are not protecting anything but your own convenience or wealth, is aking to killing your parents because you don't want to pay for their nursing home anymore.

If for some reason the mother was to die at the 12 week mark, would the fetus be able to survive on it's own? Let us not forget that as yet it can not be asked if it wants to continue without it's mother, so do we a.) hook it up to all kinds of contraptions to keep it alive, b.) implant it in another (a surrogot mother), c.) assume that it is a DNR patient and see if it can survive on it's own with just nurshiment to be provided.

 

[Rope64]

I favor lower taxes, as long as they are paid for by less spending. I'm VERY libertarian on gay rights, gun control, civil liberties, drugs (want to legalize them), porn, First Amendment issues in general, prostitution, etc. I just take a "right-wing" view that I don't have the right to decide if OTHERS live or die. Murder is not a civil liberty.

What about socialized medicine? People are dying in our country because they have no access to health care; are you your brother's keeper or not? Maybe you think only pregnant women are responsible for the lives of others.

 

[zeb1094]

I just take a "right-wing" view that I don't have the right to decide if OTHERS live or die. Murder is not a civil liberty.

Well you wouldn't be deciding, the woman's who's body it is would, so your hands are clean!

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

What about socialized medicine? People are dying in our country because they have no access to health care; are you your brother's keeper or not? Maybe you think only pregnant women are responsible for the lives of others.

My own view on socialized medicine is that it should be VERY limited: not taking away the right to CHOOSE private sector health care. I favor "last-resort" subsidized health care by the STATES, not unconstitutional, bloated Federal programs.

Also, if a surrogate mother can be found (by the way, I'm not even sure that is possible), good, but otherwise, of course, we are helpless to save such a fragile life. That would not be the doctors' or nurses' fault. That doesn't take away the fact that these are still PEOPLE with souls. To me, the brain is the keeper of the soul. When the brain is present, the soul can be and usually is there. Without, the soul can not reside. That is because I don't believe in pre-incarnate life (with the possible exception of reincarnation).

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

Well you wouldn't be deciding, the woman's who's body it is would, so your hands are clean!

I'm just glad that you're not a woman and I'm not a fetus.

 

[Rope64]

My own view on socialized medicine is that it should be VERY limited: not taking away the right to CHOOSE private sector health care.

And what about being poor? Doesn't that take away the "right" to "choose" private sector health care? Or is a right something that only people who can afford it get to have?

 

[Sex and Death]

severusmax: you're right: that's distinctly non-libertarian. :>

IMX, most people's stances on abortion are generally most easily identified by how they answer the question of "when does life begin"? i know of almost no pro-choicers who would agree it begins at conception or the first trimester.

ed

I believe life begins at conception.

I believe there are more valubale things than human life, or any life, regardless of how long that life has existed in this world.

I fully support pro choice abortion rights.

I believe the vast majority of abortions are poor, selfish and fear-based decisions

I believe a woman, and, when possible, the father, family, friends and community ought to commune concerning a decision to abort a pregnancy or not.

I believe that sometimes the mother, sometimes the father, sometimes family/friends/community, sometimes a wise and loving thrid party (rarely the government, if ever) and sometimes a combination thereof is the right person or persons to make the decision that serves all involved the best.

I believe abortion is an issue in the USA primarily because of the disintegration of marriage, family and community as the central core of society.

S&D

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

And what about being poor? Doesn't that take away the "right" to "choose" private sector health care? Or is a right something that only people who can afford it get to have?

Argue that one with overpriced HMOs, not me.

 

[silverwhisper]

norajane: if severusmax believes it's a life after the first trimester, as his choice of language (murder) would imply, then his conclusion is completely logical.

severusmax: since there's no clear consensus in the general voting population of the US as to when life does begin, picking an arbitrary point and saying "here it is life. prior to this, it isn't" is problematic, don't you think?

me personally, i'm of the view that life begins at some nebulous point between the first trimester and birth but am unclear on where precisely that occurs.

ed

 

[Rope64]

Argue that one with overpriced HMOs, not me.

The "overpriced HMOs" are not the ones saying that everyone has a right to life: you are!

 

[zeb1094]

I'm just glad that you're not a woman and I'm not a fetus.

But you don't know that for sure, do you?

For all you know I might be a woman. A woman who, during a pregnancy had to visit a back alley hack because it was prior to Roe v. Wade and abortion was illegal. A woman who then had to be placed in the ICU because she was bleeding out. A woman who does regret what she did but happily supports the rights of other women to NOT have to endure what I did.

 

[Rope64]

It's awfully easy to decide that all sorts of rights exist, as long as we can insist that someone else is responsible for guaranteeing them.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

I believe life begins at conception.

I believe there are more valubale things than human life, or any life, regardless of how long that life has existed in this world.

I fully support pro choice abortion rights.

I believe the vast majority of abortions are poor, selfish and fear-based decisions

I believe a woman, and, when possible, the father, family, friends and community ought to commune concerning a decision to abort a pregnancy or not.

I believe that sometimes the mother, sometimes the father, sometimes family/friends/community, sometimes a wise and loving thrid party (rarely the government, if ever) and sometimes a combination thereof is the right person or persons to make the decision that serves all involved the best.

I believe abortion is an issue in the USA primarily because of the disintegration of marriage, family and community as the central core of society.

S&D

Interesting take, but it sounds too wedded to "societal values" to me. I embrace the laws of Nature myself, preferring to trust the natural order that ordains the life-and-death cycle with its own time. I am not one to let "community" dictate things, unless you are speaking of deliberate acts of murder, mayhem, etc. A new society, based on the ordo natura, can form new values that celebrate life and avoid such evils as abortion. I hope to see the dawn of such a new society, but posts like those in this thread do not reassure me in this regard.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

The "overpriced HMOs" are not the ones saying that everyone has a right to life: you are!

I don't say that you have a right to be PROVIDED with life by people not responsible for your daily welfare and entrusted with it by Nature. I am saying that you have a right not to have it SEIZED from you by those who HAVE been so entrusted. A baby is a stewardship given by Nature, not a possession to be ruled, life and death, by the parents.

 

[Rope64]

I don't say that you have a right to be PROVIDED with life by people not responsible for your daily welfare and entrusted with it by Nature. I am saying that you have a right not to have it SEIZED from you by those who HAVE been so entrusted. A baby is a stewardship given by Nature, not a possession to be ruled, life and death, by the parents.

There is a long tradition of appealing to "natural law" when one wants to impose his views on other people, and all you are doing here is continuing that nonsensical tradition.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

norajane: if severusmax believes it's a life after the first trimester, as his choice of language (murder) would imply, then his conclusion is completely logical.

severusmax: since there's no clear consensus in the general voting population of the US as to when life does begin, picking an arbitrary point and saying "here it is life. prior to this, it isn't" is problematic, don't you think?

me personally, i'm of the view that life begins at some nebulous point between the first trimester and birth but am unclear on where precisely that occurs.

ed

And THERE you have the problem. I can't IMPOSE my definition of life on NJ, any more than I can on Rope 64 or the others. I am following the weight of medical evidence, but I can't force people to accept the validity of it. I know that, realistically, Roe vs. Wade is here to stay. I don't even want to end it- I want to "modify" it a bit. Even THAT is unlikely to happen, so this whole discussion is academic, right?

I am not pushing for a "human life" Amendment, but I AM declaring that I still regard the Roe decision as flawed and badly in need of modification and/or revision. I prefer to use philosophy and expand the pagan view of the world, until perhaps the new age of humanity will reject the butchering wholesale of infants and other interruptions of the ordo natura.

 

[BlackSnake]

do you mean psychological harm in cases of rape or incest?

I had to take off my head phones, because I might need to be clear on my position when it comes to these two horrible crimes.

Everyone is not the same and everything is not how it seems.

I disagree with abortion purely in case of incest and/or rape. I'm not going to point my finger at a victim and tell her what I think is best for her, but I would be saddened and disappoint if this is the reason for getting an abortion.

In these cases, I choose life. It is not my call. A woman should be the only one to make that decision.

She will not have a demon spawn.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

There is a long tradition of appealing to "natural law" when one wants to impose his views on other people, and all you are doing here is continuing that nonsensical tradition.

I base my understanding of the laws of Nature on the best scientific data available, not some arbitrary premise. Since medical science supports my contention that the brain is the source of consciousness and present at 12 weeks, I have good reason to take that position as to what Nature ordains here.

 

[Sex and Death]

I don't say that you have a right to be PROVIDED with life by people not responsible for your daily welfare and entrusted with it by Nature. I am saying that you have a right not to have it SEIZED from you by those who HAVE been so entrusted. A baby is a stewardship given by Nature, not a possession to be ruled, life and death, by the parents.

Everything is a stewardship. It's all on loan. And we're taking pretty shitty care of it all, human life included.

That said, "to see eternity in a grain of sand..."

Who or what has entrusted us with said stewardship is another thread.

 

[silverwhisper]

a request

folks, abortion is a touchy issue for many. could we hold off on the pejorative language, please? if i have inadvertently done so myself, i apologize for that: that's not the way i like to conduct myself.

ed

 

[Stella_Omega]

I have been sexually active since the age of sixteen, and I was taught about birth control long before I started screwing. It was no big deal to me, to know that responsiblle birth control was My business not the boy's.
I have had NO abortions, and have had two children, these two were wanted and loved.

On the other hand, my sister had an unwanted pregnancy, and aborted it. She felt no compunction, and never has that I can tell, and has never had to repeat the experience. She has no children, and doesn't want them. i wouldn't want her to- I'd end up raising the kid, I know.

I feel that any woman has the right to abort, for any reason at all- if it's because she doesn't want stretch marks, I'll support that decision because such a shallow reason marks her as an unfit mother.

In this, my reasoning is almost biblical- weird as that sounds- she is the creator, she has the right to destroy.

As it happens, it's a very, very difficult thing to do, and most women truly grieve when put to the mark. All the rhetoric about "stretch marks" etc is mostly propoganda from the anti-choice brigade. yes, it happens, but- there are a lot of marginaly psychotic people out there, and some of them are women.

As someone mentioned earlier in this thread, any man who says that an unwanted child should be adopted had bettter be ready to adopt. The same society that makes it so difficult for a woman to implement her own decisions, also makes it incredibly difficult for the babies to find adoptive possibilities- single women and even more so single men, for the most part, cannot adopt. At the same time thousands- I don't know the numbers- of children remain without a family here in the US, thousands of families are going overseas in order to bring a child home.
In the nineties, there were several cases where a court would remove a child from it's adoptive fmily- long after the family had boned with the baby, in the expectation that their emotional security was assured. This put a pall on the US adoptive process, and is another factor that sent many of my friends to China, Korea, and the Czech Republic.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

Everything is a stewardship. It's all on loan. And we're taking pretty shitty care of it all, human life included.

That said, "to see eternity in a grain of sand..."

Who or what has entrusted us with said stewardship is another thread.

I personally take the view that your labor and the fruits thereof are your property, along with anything that you are willing to defend, provided that isn't a person. People are not possessions. As to everything being a stewardship, ultimately, that is correct, in the sense that Nature owns it and we are part of Nature. We do not keep it after death. Even so, children are sovereign persons, only being controlled for a short time (until their majority), at which point they are responsible for their own fates. In what way does that stewardship by the parents give them a right to murder those in their care?

 

[Rope64]

I base my understanding of the laws of Nature on the best scientific data available, not some arbitrary premise. Since medical science supports my contention that the brain is the source of consciousness and present at 12 weeks, I have good reason to take that position as to what Nature ordains here.

The "Law of Nature" would indicate that you should exterminate anyone or anything that competes with you for resources, man, woman, child, or beast. This is how nature works; it doesn't give a rat's ass about "responsibility" or "stewardship" or morality. This is the ordo natura, and not your notions about the obligations that "Nature ordains." I don't see how you can reasonably dispute this, and I doubt very much that once you acknowledge what the actual natural order is that you would suggest for an instant that human society should be governed by it.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

Let's just say that there are multiple creators of the child, and the ultimate Creator is Nature itself. Such a creative process doesn't inherently bestow a right to destroy, in that once something is created, it is distinct from its Creator(s).

There ARE plenty willing to adopt. The very fact of the popularity of overseas adoptions and the long waiting lists is proof of that. I resent the notion that you should have to adopt someone to keep them from being slaughtered. No one would dream of closing down nursing homes and telling people, "Well, if you don't adopt these elderly folk, we will have to kill them all." It's absurd and a poor defense for murder.

I respect everyone here, but I also respectfully disagree with your logic and views. That is all that I have to say on this topic.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

The "Law of Nature" would indicate that you should exterminate anyone or anything that competes with you for resources, man, woman, child, or beast. This is how nature works; it doesn't give a rat's ass about "responsibility" or "stewardship" or morality. This is the ordo natura, and not your notions about the obligations that "Nature ordains." I don't see how you can reasonably dispute this, and I doubt very much that once you acknowledge what the actual natural order is that you would suggest for an instant that human society should be governed by it.

What is Nature for one species is not Nature for others. Man's nature is more evolved, both for the better and for the worse. "Ordo natura", as applied to man, is more a matter of respect for each other. There IS some fighting, but not to the point of extermination. We are not goats. We are humans. Humans have natural bonding with our children, for instance. Snakes and other reptiles often neglect them. Our evolution has produced distinct primal urges. Don't confuse all species with each other and lump them all together.

Anyway, enough of this topic. I am getting angry, and need to switch to a different one, just I can calm down.