Abortion to be outlawed by Bush in this term...

[muxec]

As one Dr. of politology said on local TV "Red states vote for moral, blue states vote for libertanism". I support republicans as they care more about the rest of the world, not only about order in The White House and everything about it.

Previously prohibition led to criminal activities in sphere of alcohol trade. In case of abortion ban mafia will take control over hospitals.

Anyway too many americans in "advanced" cities **** everything that moves. It's wrong.

[Elok]

Well, Pekka, some of us do oppose the death penalty; it's just harder to get worked up about some guy who murdered several people getting more or less humanely snuffed than it is to get upset about an innocent child being killed for the crimes or mistakes of one or both of its parents.

My opposition to the DP is chiefly that it's hard to be absolutely certain you have the right guy. Also, as it is today it doesn't have much deterrent value either. While the idea of prison-as-rehabilitation has some merits, direct reprogramming is impossible under the principles of any honorable democracy, and short of that people will only really change their ways when sincerely convinced that they are better off doing so. Which prison can't do. And it's not like society directly benefits from having a shiny new convict-carcass either. So I look at the penal system only as a deterrent, and if the idea of dying of old age on death row is as nonfrightening as it seems to me the DP is both wrong and pointless.

But that's just me. There's no one "pro-life point of view," really. Most pro-lifers think contraceptives will encourage child molestation or some crap like that, and I flatly refuse to be identified with such ideas. I can only speak for myself.

[Pekka]

" it's just harder to get worked up about some guy who murdered several people getting more or less humanely snuffed than it is to get upset about an innocent child being killed for the crimes or mistakes of one or both of its parents."

Yeah, but then again shouldn't we as Christians forgive that person and thus be able to fight the DP all the harder? Besides, that person could be innocent as well.

My view on DP is that I don't believe justice system has the right to sentence someone to die. I think it's not an option, but I contradict this with my opinion that I think DP MIGHT be an option in extreme conditions, like war.

[Elok]

Well, this is a little threadjacky, but what's the difference between killing the guy painlessly and letting him die of old age while serving out a life sentence? Like I said, I do agree that it's all but impossible to be absolutely certain we have the right guy, so on those grounds it is problematic. I'm not saying the DP is just, only that there is a distinction between it and abortion in terms of moral significance. It's a question of whether a punishment of the guilty is too harsh, as opposed to whether innocents are being deliberately punished. Yes, I know, "it's just a chunk of cells," etc. That is indeed the question at hand. But if it's more than a chunk of cells, abortion or anything like it would seem to be fundamentally wrong.

[Pekka]

" but what's the difference between killing the guy painlessly and letting him die of old age while serving out a life sentence?"

That's just a nice way of putting execution

[Elok]

What is, letting him live out a life sentence? I mean, lethal injection really is about as painful as a flu shot...

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Elok
What is, letting him live out a life sentence? I mean, lethal injection really is about as painful as a flu shot...

Do you really think that a person going to be executed speculates more about how it's done, than the fact that he is going to die ?

Anyway, this is totally irellevant when talking about abortion because it demands some kind of consiousness wich a fetus don't have.

[Pekka]

Painless or not, it's still execution. And while some want that, not all do.

[Elok]

Eh, this needs a whole new topic. Let's just get back to the abortion thing. Anybody want to reply to my first post on page 6?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Elok
Er, to get back on topic, Spiffor, I wasn't suggesting that women revert to the role of permanent housewife. Even from a totally selfish perspective I wouldn't want that; if you want a docile and stupid animal you should get a cow, not a woman.

This is what I thought about your opinions too But if you advocate to get rid of all forms of family planning (abortion and contraception), the logical consequence is the disenfranchisement of women. If you advocate the "only" ban of abortion, you take a step, albeit not a completely extremistic one, in that direction.

But a fully enfranchised group still has to accept some unpleasant truths. To take one's place in society one has to realize that life is quite often unfair, and sometimes tolerate a great personal wrong for the sake of greater justice. We all do it on some level-when a guy drives on the shoulder of the road to get ahead of you, he's breaking the law, but if there are no police around he has to be tolerated, because it would not be just to take the law into your own hands. Yes, that's an awkward example, and I know it's easy for me to say seeing as I won't have to carry a kid, but this is all off the top of my head in early morning, so cut me some slack.

To do that, one has to consider abortion as a "great personal wrong". Many women do so, and avoid abortion on purpose, either by a successful prevention, or by keeping the unwanted offspring.
Some women percieve it as a wrong, but still better than raising an unwanted kid, and thus accept to abort if prevention failed (despite being a male, I belong to this category)
Some people don't see any problem with abortion at all, and use it as their primary means of family planning.

In all cases, our societies give a choice to women about it. I don't think anybody has ever been forced to abort in our societies. Our modernity allows women to precisely avoid these situations where unfairness is the rule.
Just like, in our societies, we don't say "tough luck, but life isn't fair" to raped women, to victims of thuggery, to cripples, or (in Europe) to the jobless. The comparison isn't perfect either, but the gist of it is here: as our societies progress, we're further and further from the law of the jungle, and we are more and more protected from the situations where "life is't fair".

To put it another way, if a guy impregnates a woman by accident and she decides to have/keep the kid, he can be forced to support the child even though he did not have any "choice" in the affair. It's not the same as having to carry and give birth to the child, but isn't that a case where personal concerns are overridden for the sake of the child?

It strongly depends on the societies and on how the parents interact.
Over here, fathers may avoid their fatherhood from being recognized altogether, if they pull the good judicial strings. For example, a friend of mine has given birth 2,5 years ago. In a few monthes, she'll finally know whether she is allowed to perform genetic tests to prove the fatherhood of the father.
In my situation, should my gf become pregnant, it would be a terrible blow both to her and to me. Because her pregnancy would strongly disrupt (if not destroy) her studies, while it would force me prematurely on the job market, before I can get all the marketable skills (and thus good jobs with a future) I could have. And despite both of our situations being strongly disrupted by a pregnancy, we are among the people who would suffer the least. How many people have had to waste their potential to take a MacJob, in order to pay the bills created by an unwanted kid?

[chequita guevara]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3971127.stm

[Last Conformist]

@Whaleboy: You're assuming that the legality of abortion should be decided on the grounds of philosophical ethics rather than social acceptability.


In other news, the biochemical grunt-work of life continues uninterupted in the ovum during conception. Human life began a few million years ago in Africa when the first humans arose. Lines don't get any more arbitrary nor irrelevant to abortion than that.

Genetic/chromosomal identity is a very poor basis for defining individuality, as evidenced by identical twins, chimerics, and cancers.

[Patroklos]

In my situation, should my gf become pregnant, it would be a terrible blow both to her and to me. Because her pregnancy would strongly disrupt (if not destroy) her studies, while it would force me prematurely on the job market, before I can get all the marketable skills (and thus good jobs with a future) I could have. And despite both of our situations being strongly disrupted by a pregnancy, we are among the people who would suffer the least. How many people have had to waste their potential to take a MacJob, in order to pay the bills created by an unwanted kid?

So just admit you value your own lives over someone you don't know, and are killing it out of convieniance. You position that "It's just a fetus" is based solely on your greed and selfishness. Like I said, revoking humanity form people for selfish gain is nothing new, and if your okay with that then fight for it all you want. But right now all of you are deluding yourself because you know if you were forced to integrate the reality of what your doing into you liberal ideology you would probobly have to commit suicide.

[Arrian]

So just admit you value your own lives over someone you don't know, and are killing it out of convieniance.

That is only true from your viewpoint of Fetus = Human Being.

You make the (insulting) assumption that Spiffor fools himself into thinking a fetus isn't human out of greed and selfishness, rather than accepting that Spiffor genuinely doesn't see a fetus as human and THEREFORE can contemplate abortion as a valid response to an unwanted pregnancy.

Yay, more demonizing the other side!

-Arrian

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Arrian


That is only true from your viewpoint of Fetus = Human Being.

You make the (insulting) assumption that Spiffor fools himself into thinking a fetus isn't human out of greed and selfishness, rather than accepting that Spiffor genuinely doesn't see a fetus as human and THEREFORE can contemplate abortion as a valid response to an unwanted pregnancy.

Yay, more demonizing the other side!

-Arrian