Anti-Abortion people...

[jlohm1]

How about ignore them?

I second this

[dbroncos78087]

Keep the religious discussion or any reference to religion out of this thread.

[JWO35]

I hate getting into the whole Abortion thing...I truly don't give a damn either way, but granted it would be pretty funny if someone countered them with something funny

[carter80]

Anti-abortion people used to do this on my campus when I was in college, but I would usually just ignore it, leave campus, and get drunk and high with my friends

Then you would go knock up a girl, not leave your number and 2 months later she would visit the abortion clinic for the 4th time.

[gcoll]

Because they are still in the womb.
Using that as justification to kill them is flawed at best.
Biologically they are the same, and the justification for the difference in how we treat some compared to others is trivial.

strawman.

Once its established that there is little to no difference, the same arguments for not killing that baby can be applied for earlier abortions.

The fact is there still are second and third trimester abortions going on, even if it isn't the most common form of abortion.

Your argument is a textbook line drawing fallacy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_fallacy

I am torn on abortion. But one idea that leads me to more of a pro-life position is thinking about a brain dead person. I see nothing wrong with pulling the plug on a person who is brain dead, and has no hope of regaining brain function. However, if he were going to regain brain function in a matter of months, it seems morally wrong to pull the plug. I apply that idea to abortion.

I don't buy that a fertilized egg is a person. But I think the idea that it will (in a matter of months) be a person is pretty compelling. People respond to this with "Hey, but what about sperm, or an egg?" A sperm or an egg are not eventually going to become anything more than a sperm or an egg unless conception happens.

Any line we draw that is not birth is entirely arbitrary.

Drawing the line at birth is also arbitrary.

You've injected the premise "it can survive without entirely relying on the mother"....but that premise comes from nowhere. It's arbitrary. What does it imply? Nothing, really.

Babies are reliant on others for care, but the degree of their reliance is significantly different after birth than it is before.

Why does that degree determine whether or not abortion is ok?

It seems like your argument is sort of; because it relies on the woman's body, and the woman can make choices about her body (due to personal autonomy), then she can abort it.

But doesn't that argument apply with equal force to not feeding a baby? I have personal autonomy, and the ability to do what I please. If I choose not to feed an infant, it dies. Is that ok? Obviously not.

So, if that is your abortion argument...it has flaws. (but everyone's abortion argument has flaws, because the entire debate is about drawing arbitrary lines.)

There are a few simple, inescapable facts:

1. Most abortions, about 90%, occur during the first trimester, before the 13th week of gestation. It is impossible to argue that a 12 week old fetus is a person in any sense of the word.

2. Women will get abortions regardless of abortion laws. The problem here is that these abortions are done by untrained people, or in unsafe environments, and far too often the women are permenantly harmed, if not killed by infection or bleeding or something along those lines. In the US where abortion is legal, it is literally a safer procedure than having your tonsils out.

And #2 is where the pro-life argument really dies for me. Outlawing something isn't going to stop it, it's just going to mean people will take more risks to do it.

Your emphasis on #2 relies entirely on the idea that abortion is not a morally wrong violation of someone else's rights. Which is sort of the whole argument.

[natepro]

Drawing the line at birth is also arbitrary.

You've injected the premise "it can survive without entirely relying on the mother"....but that premise comes from nowhere. It's arbitrary. What does it imply? Nothing, really.

It's not at all arbitrary. Outside of the moment of conception, which we have no ability to detect in any reasonable way, it is the only clearly defined line.

I haven't injected that premise at all.

Why does that degree determine whether or not abortion is ok?

It seems like your argument is sort of; because it relies on the woman's body, and the woman can make choices about her body (due to personal autonomy), then she can abort it.

But doesn't that argument apply with equal force to not feeding a baby? I have personal autonomy, and the ability to do what I please. If I choose not to feed an infant, it dies. Is that ok? Obviously not.

So, if that is your abortion argument...it has flaws. (but everyone's abortion argument has flaws, because the entire debate is about drawing arbitrary lines.)

I was not claiming that that degree determines whether or not it's okay.

Instead, all that was simply a reply to this claim:

It can easily be argued that babies out of the womb are just as reliant and dependent and cannot survive on their own.

...which is, clearly, untrue. That was the entirety of the point I was making, and nothing beyond that.

Your emphasis on #2 relies entirely on the idea that abortion is not a morally wrong violation of someone else's rights. Which is sort of the whole argument.

It's impossible for it to be a violation of someone else's rights when there isn't a someone else to grant rights to. The fetus is simply not a person, and not only is there no line outside of birth that we can draw separating whether it is or is not a person, there isn't a terribly compelling reason to change it, either.

But whether or not it is morally wrong, regardless of the "someone else's rights" part of it, is entirely immaterial to my second point. It is going to happen whether it is legal or not, and whether it is wrong or not. You can't unring the bell. If people in developing nations are having abortions when the conditions are anything but safe, how could you possibly hope to stop them in a developed nation where far safer conditions are possible?

You could argue that we wouldn't take that stance with something like murder, in that people are going to kill other people and so we should make it legal. The problem with this is that the legality of murder isn't the determining factor in whether or not most people kill other people. I haven't not killed someone just because it's illegal, I would imagine the same is true for you and just about anyone else reading this. It's the same reason I haven't stolen or committed arson, as well. That argument doesn't apply in the abortion instance.

[Tomahawk27]

Not to disrupt the argument here but I've always had the line of thinking that unless the woman was raped or the pregnancy posed a serious threat to the woman's health, that abortion should be outlawed. If the person decided to have sex in the first place, they should have to live with the consequences.

I have never given thought to the fact that if abortion were outlawed, many of these children may grow up without a father, in a broken household, in poverty, etc. It is definitely something to think about

[gcoll]

It's not at all arbitrary. Outside of the moment of conception, which we have no ability to detect in any reasonable way, it is the only clearly defined line.

I haven't injected that premise at all.

It's arbitrary to declare that well-defined line means anything.

It's impossible for it to be a violation of someone else's rights when there isn't a someone else to grant rights to. The fetus is simply not a person,

Is an infant a person? If so, what makes a person a person? What makes a fetus not a person, but an infant a person?

But whether or not it is morally wrong, regardless of the "someone else's rights" part of it, is entirely immaterial to my second point. It is going to happen whether it is legal or not, and whether it is wrong or not. You can't unring the bell. If people in developing nations are having abortions when the conditions are anything but safe, how could you possibly hope to stop them in a developed nation where far safer conditions are possible?

You can't stop them. But that's not a reason to make them legal.

There's no logic in what you are saying here.

"It's going to happen anyway.....therefore it should be legal." The conclusion does not at all follow from the premise. Basically, if you're going to argue that abortion is a right; you can't have "abortion is a right" as one of your premises. Which a lot of your arguments rely on.

You could argue that we wouldn't take that stance with something like murder, in that people are going to kill other people and so we should make it legal. The problem with this is that the legality of murder isn't the determining factor in whether or not most people kill other people. I haven't not killed someone just because it's illegal, I would imagine the same is true for you and just about anyone else reading this. It's the same reason I haven't stolen or committed arson, as well. That argument doesn't apply in the abortion instance.

Murder is a violation of someone else's rights. As is arson. As is theft. That's why the "it's going to happen anyway" argument doesn't apply there. Which is the point I made earlier.

The legality determining whether or not someone does something has no impact on anything. That ultimately comes down to how risk averse people are. How much they value committing the crime vs. how much they fear the penalty.

[sexicano31]

Not to disrupt the argument here but I've always had the line of thinking that unless the woman was raped or the pregnancy posed a serious threat to the woman's health, that abortion should be outlawed. If the person decided to have sex in the first place, they should have to live with the consequences.

I have never given thought to the fact that if abortion were outlawed, many of these children may grow up without a father, in a broken household, in poverty, etc. It is definitely something to think about

"Consequences"? The **** you talking about? What if 2 consenting adults decide to have sex: the girl is on birth control and the guy used a condom yet she still gets pregnant. What if she isnt ready for the baby? What then

I guess if someone also gets an STD they should be forced to live with it forever

[gcoll]

"Consequences"? The **** you talking about? What if 2 consenting adults decide to have sex: the girl is on birth control and the guy used a condom yet she still gets pregnant. What if she isnt ready for the baby? What then

I guess if someone also gets an STD they should be forced to live with it forever

What if 2 consenting adults decide to have sex: the girl is on birth control and the guy used a condom yet she still gets pregnant. What if HE isn't ready for a baby? What then?

Well, if she decides to have the baby, then he owes 18 years of child support payments. If he refuses to pay them, he is a criminal.

[sexicano31]

Ok? Thats his problem then

[alexander_37]

Walk around with coat hangers and a free abortions sign.

[dbroncos78087]

Not to disrupt the argument here but I've always had the line of thinking that unless the woman was raped or the pregnancy posed a serious threat to the woman's health, that abortion should be outlawed. If the person decided to have sex in the first place, they should have to live with the consequences.

I have never given thought to the fact that if abortion were outlawed, many of these children may grow up without a father, in a broken household, in poverty, etc. It is definitely something to think about

The consequence of which you speak is not an inevitable, it is a medically simple and routine procedure that can prevent an ill-equipped would-be parent from having a child that will come into a family that is not ready to receive it.

[gcoll]

Ok? Thats his problem then

Why doesn't "that's her problem" answer your original question?

[kjoke]

I think the assessment that a child within womb is essentially not a person because of some scientific interpretation is very trivial.


To answer the OP question, hand out coat hangers.