And to those of you who support a right to abortion, why do you support abortion rights but not new born killing rights?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/...abortion-experts-say.html

an abortion is not the same as killing a living breathing baby. more propaganda from the anti abortionists.

at some point in the pregnancy abortion shouldnt happen, i will agree if you havent realized you need an abortion and youre 6 months along, deal with it. in the first 90 days or so? go for it.

The main problem I have with hardcore pro-lifers is that they tend not to be very consistent in their viewpoints.

I generally think abortion is a terrible thing and should be limited to the first trimester except in the case of when the life of the mother is in danger (Rape/Incest situations should easily be handled in the first trimester).

However, typically, it seems like those that are pro-lifers argue that life is too precious. However, many of those same people argue in favor of capital punishment. If life is precious, then that's the end of the statement. There is no "Life is precious EXCEPT...."

Furthermore, it bothers me when the people that are strongly pro-life are completely against the usage and education on usage of contraceptives. It's a small percentage of the general public that buys into the whole "Abstinence Until Marriage" idea when they're a horny 16 or 17 year old kid. Or worse, when they're a horny 21 year old kid at a college party who's also drunk.

One other thing I find tedious about this argument, at least in American politics, is that there's very little that our politicians can do about it, yet it's a topic of discussion every 2 or 4 years. It doesn't really matter if Pres. Obama is pro-choice or pro-life just like it won't matter if whoever is president from 2013-2017 will be pro-choice or pro-life. The Supreme Court decided a full ban on abortion is unconstitutional. Unless they hear another abortion case and reverse that ruling or there's a constitutional amendment, there's nothing a president or senator or congressman can really do to completely ban abortion.

The topic of discussion should be: What can we do to decrease the number of abortions?

And to that question, I would have no problem putting further hurdles towards people who are already pregnant (once again, excepting certain situations, like rape, incest or health of mother) and wanting an abortion, but at the same time, allow teenagers in high school to learn about contraceptive us in health class. It won't promote those that truly want to remain virgins until marriage to start having sex, it'll only promote that those that ARE having sex are doing it more safely.

let me know when we're allowed to eat them like hamsters. hmmm, are we allowed to eat hamsters?

I don't believe there are any laws in place banning the eating of hamster.

Not much meat though. Takes probably at least a dozen to make a good meal.

mmmm, hamster McNuggets.

You can eat placenta

Well I only support abortion for the first two trimesters so it should be obvious why I do not support killing new-borns... I agree that killing a newborn is akin to killing a near-birth fetus.

When a human exists to the detriment of the rest of humanity, the death of that human doesn't bother me. This doesn't give me the right to choose that death for someone else's baby, but I feel no compulsion to write laws against someone who does choose to do that to their own baby. Contrary to our instincts, babies are the least valuable people in society. They have not been taught anything and have no ability to do anything useful. There are many hunter gatherer societies that historically did not keep unwanted children. It could endanger the survival of the entire community. I do not condemn them.

It is far better to not have children you are not prepared to care for, but until I am allowed to withhold my tax dollars in support of these unwanted children so that they can properly starve to death when their mothers can't care for them just as nature intended, abortion is a good option. Infanticide is not as good. I don't prefer cruelty--only that people take responsibility for their reproduction.

Terror is right up until the point of saying that babies are the least valuable people. To be very direct, some babies are more valuable than adults who act in the direct detriment of society (such as unreformable criminals).

And babies themselves tend to have different potentials, and the best way to determine his potential is to examine the intelligence/pedigree of his parents. If his parents and entire heritage have been shameless societal parasites, then the baby will likely be the same. If his pedigree show great contributors to society, with only deadbeat parents, he will much more likely be an active contributor to this world.

Accordingly, we should treat different people with foresight.

How can you say "its not a life" if there's a heart beat!!! Don't get me started!! Its hilarious how the left loves to call our military "baby killers" all while themselves supporting partial birth abortions.. *vomits*

Not every beating heart is the same, of course.

SAVE THE BABY SEALS!

meh

if its good 90 days before than 90 days after is just as good. When people get to old to do for themselves thats good to. people to slow of wit thats very good.

Cows have heartbeats and we kill them all the time. Just like a fetus, they are not humans.

What is partial-birth? One arm and one leg sticking out of the woman? Talk about a stupid term.

The left doesn't call the military "baby killers". That is something that people like Rush Limbaugh made up and then his brainless lackeys lapped up. People on the left generally view our military as a force for defending our country, not for unilateral aggression. The left values the lives of our troops over 20 cents at the pump. The left likes keeping our troops out of harm's way as much as possible. The left actually supports our troops.

I usually call the troops 'murderers.'

How in the world is a fetus not a human? I can see it argued that its not a 'person' philosophically speaking, in the sense that a new born is also not a 'person' as it does not yet recognize itself as itself etc. You are a human and you were a fetus. If you were killed as a fetus, it would have been YOU that was killed, as you would not exist.

If your mother traveled in time and asked you if it was okay if she killed you as a fetus, I suspect you would say no, because that's you. If you would say no to your mother, its indefensible to support abortion. The fetuses being killed would love to say 'no', but they can't yet.

Klown, a fetus is not a human because... it's a fetus. Just like an egg is not a chicken. It's a step toward becoming a human, and how sacred you think that is is up to you. But at that stage it's simply a bundle of cells without conscious thought or anything else that makes us human. If my mother had an abortion, I wouldn't be getting killed, I simply would never exist. And although I think abortion is overall kind of 'bad' that would be her choice, since she is a mature human and the fetus is inside her body.

The embryo inside of an egg IS a chicken once its fertilized. Its the first part of life. The fertilized egg WAS you, and if it was killed it was you being killed (as evidenced by you not existing), you just didn't realize it at the time.

So from the moment of conception you think the egg is a human? That thinking might be true for you but I would not consider that "me" and I don't think you can persuade people otherwise if they don't happen to agree with you. Therefore the problem with legislating against abortion.

Can you tell me why you were 'you' when you were a newborn but not as a fetus? The article I posted draws the conclusion you weren't 'you' as a newborn or as a fetus, which is at least consistent.

No, I can't tell you that because I don't think there is a bright line when you become "you." The moment of birth is just a convenient line to draw from a practicality standpoint, and a much more accurate line than one drawn at conception would be.

Babies don't have much of a sense of self until after they are a year old and possibly two, so the concept of asking the me that was a fetus many years ago if I object to my mother having an abortion would not just be beyond my language ability, but literally beyond my ability to care about it.

If I set that aside though and use my adult intellect to answer for my unborn self, I still support my mother's right to choose. Somehow I doubt this will sell Klown on my pov though.

I think watertowers undervalues unreformable criminals. Those are the people I want manning a colonization space mission to Mars never to return to earth. Penal colonies have in the past proven to be a relatively effective way to populate new territories. Those people's inability to follow rules and fight for dominance is exactly what would keep them alive as a Martian colonist.

No, that's fine, but I think we should put you on suicide watch.

Nope.
But I do think it problematic to say we will charge someone with murder today for doing the same thing they were legal doing the day or two before.

Detmer, go get your head checked, bro, you define ignorant....you made us all smarter just by posting that idiotic remark about arms and legs and cows and Rush? LMFAO!! WOW!!!!

You realize by saying he made us smarter, you're giving him credit for educating everyone else in the thread, right?

Try adding something to the conversation for once before you criticize others.

are y'all doing the arguement where people ain't allowed to kill each other and God will punish them for doing it? so it really shouldn't matter if other people want to go around killing each other. i think it's a bit easier to eat a bowl of rice though.

Banning abortion is suicide.

More babies, more resources consumed, faster to the end of the world.


Oh god what have I done

It's not that simple Forgotten. Humans are merely following the same pattern as bacteria in a petri dish. The multiply until until they exceed the population load for their environment thus damaging it so that it will hold less afterward, but it doesn't just become lifeless.

So it's not the end of the world that we face--just a lot of pain and suffering. Unfortunately there isn't much to do about it. Those who believe we should have fewer children will simply have their ideas overwhelmed by the progeny of those who think having more children is better. Catholics for example would be fine with breeding out the non-Catholic population of the world.

if all christians died, they would go the heaven, great for them, right?

if all christians died, world would drop to less than 5billion people.

great for the world right?

AWESOME IDEA

Certainly better than all the Buddhists dying. They'd just come back again. :(

Actually I know for a fact I was nearly aborted and I respect that. I appreciate that I was born, but I do not think that the infinite number of mythical fetuses are a realistic audience to poll. I am glad there are abortions, even if it almost happened to me.

So a fetus is a human? Is a sperm a human? What do you think makes something a human? I think that term 'human' is just as fine philosophically as 'person'. Something that does not have consciousness is not a human (not that consciousness alone defines a human), it is just some arbitrary lump of cells. the lump of cells in the womb does not gain consciousness until the third trimester. At that point it is a human life. Before that it might as well be a cabbage.




KoH, you are humiliating yourself.

If you want to say that the joining of sperm and egg is an arbitrary point to consider it "human life," I'd be curious to hear what the line exactly is. You bring up third trimester. Is there some specific occurrence during third trimester that shifts the balance from "lump of cells" to "human being?" What is that occurrence?

I'm far from 100% against abortion, but I also find your line in the sand to be far more arbitrary than those of the pro-lifers in this thread. I understand the need to draw a line somewhere, but unless you're simply making it "third trimester" simply for the purpose of having a clean, easy line, then I don't really see any justifiable difference between an unborn child at 26 weeks and an unborn child at 27 weeks.

Third trimester is when a fetus gains consciousness. A human consciousness is in my eyes what separates us from the animals and perhaps is tantamount to being a soul.

Here is a general audience link touching on that:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/...-does-consciousness-arise

Just to play devil's advocate:

1) I have a friend who had a child very premature, about 5 to 5 1/2 months into the pregnancy, which is clearly a 2nd trimester baby. Would it be okay to kill that child for the first few weeks of its life because it wasn't to the 6 months of development?

2) If someone is badly injured and ends up in a coma, is it okay to kill them off? (Not just let them die, but to actually kill them)

1) Do babies develop the same out of the womb as in the womb? If so, I'd say so.

2) I don't really know much about comas. From what I think I know about comas, I feel like that would be akin to killing someone while they sleep.

how much does it cost to keep a person on life-support and how many people are dying because they can't get affordable healthcare because of it?

little numbers fact for you...20 years after abortion was legalized in the us violent crime rate fell dramatically. the gift of life is often much harder on those who have to live it as an unwanted.

are you really claiming crime reduction has to do with increased abortions.
I think the arguemnt that Social security heading toward broke since we murdered 50 million workers would have a better correlation to believe.

the past ten years abortions are down, and actually dramaticlly by % like 50%, so I would guess your expecting ( by that assumption)a huge search in violent crime coming near the end of this decade?

depends on the reason for the decrease ... abortion is down now due to family planning. If however people are forced to have children they do not want, those children are statistically more likely to commit a violent crime. Can you imagine growing up with a parent who never wanted you or did not have the ability or even want to care for you?

Correlation does not equal causation. There were a lot of changes going on in the country at this time.

Doesn't matter if you ban abortions, women will still have them. Only, they'll have them with coat-hangers, in filthy back-rooms, etc. That's (another reason) why abortion should stay legal.