Abortion: split from stem cell research

How about allowing both the sperm and egg donor to decide whether the "embryo" is viable. sometime between the time they start sucking oxygen and the day they are 18.

as for a fetus or embryo being "an unvialable clump of cells" I'm willing to wager that we can all be defined as unviable tissue mass... without the support of other how long would most of us survive?..

i offer this challange... strip naked and go live in the woods for 3 weeks without any tools of modern society... come back and tell us how it went...


when you allow others to decide your rights then you are no more than a slave to them.

live your life the best way you no how and allow me to do the same...

Thanks for the brave anonymous negative feedback. Rather than answering the questions. I guess no ones given you the talking points yet.

Okay, people, take a deep breath. We're at the traditional impasse. Further discuss is probably useless.

As I said up front, there is a vocal, fairly sizable minority that believes that the fertilized egg is a human being with rights that trump the rights of the mother. Period. End of discussion.

My only disappointment with that faction is that they persist in focusing ONLY on areas of disagreement and never, ever seek consensus on issues on which we can agree and which would probably be effective in reducing the number of abortions performed drastically. We can agree, for example, that abortion is often an ethically-suspect action that is a p--s poor substitute for responsibility, and that we would like to see very few of them performed. They focus on prohibition only, and never on prevention, education, and the like. When you consider that prohibition doesn't work, it makes the sane man ready to give up and check into the rubber room.

I firmly believe that if we worked together, we could reduce the number of abortions by 75 percent in just a few years without prohibition. We could reduce the levels far below what they would be WITH prohibition. But the anti-abortion people just aren't interested in that. They're only interested in pursuing a strategy that we already know doesn't work. And they're willing to divide the country to do it.

How about a response from the other side and we call it quits?

j

I agree we'd be far further ahead attacking the social and economical causes that lead to one choosing an abortion.

Prohibition hasn't worked reducing the incidents of anything else, so I don't know why one would think it would lead to a reduction in abortions. In fact the prohibition on drugs most likely leads to an increase in abortion. Money that could be spent on treating people is used to lock them up with no help for the root addiction problem. It also leads to single mother's in poor financial conditions, which are more likely to choose an abortion, because the father is in jail.

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Originally Posted by Hutch

I agree we'd be far further ahead attacking the social and economical causes that lead to one choosing an abortion.

Prohibition hasn't worked reducing the incidents of anything else, so I don't know why one would think it would lead to a reduction in abortions. In fact the prohibition on drugs most likely leads to an increase in abortion. Money that could be spent on treating people is used to lock them up with no help for the root addiction problem. It also leads to single mother's in poor financial conditions, which are more likely to choose an abortion, because the father is in jail.

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We actually have data on what happens when abortion is prohibited. In the years before Roe v. Wade, doctors were prosecuted so draconianly for performing abortions that few of them would even consider it. Anyone helping a woman seek an abortion was arrested for a felony. Yet millions of abortions were performed.

j

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Originally Posted by Hutch

Here's one what if a gay couple wanted to adopt a baby that would have been other wise aborted? Or what would the religious right do if there was a way to test to find out if a fetus was going to be gay, would they then support abortion, or would they prefer to torment the human as he grew.

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I have a very good friend who together with his life partner adopted a son that had a potentially hideous illness. The father (once they were able to figure out which of the many candidates was the actual father) has spent most of his life in jail, and opposed the adoption till he met my friend and his partner and realized this was a good move for his son. And the kid is doing really well.

It would really be a shame if the mother had aborted the child just because she couldn't support him - there was a loving family waiting waiting down the highway.

I have another friend who has four children that he and his wife created, and he adopted a fifth from Russia. He said when he dies that will be the best thing he ever did.

It would have been a shame if that daughter had been aborted.

I have another good friend - he's a lawyer, his wife is a doctor, they happen to be black, and they had kids fairly late, and one was diagnosed in amnio as having downs syndrome. They decided to have the baby anyway because they are religious and don't believe it's ok to murder a retarded kid. Turns out, the kid didn't have downs syndrome [oops] and is doing great.

It would have been a shame if they had killed their little girl on medical advice.

This isn't a racial issue and it isn't really a political issue, it's a human issue. And our fast food instant gratification values are leading to a lot of shortsighted, tragic decisions. And it's just sad.

Very good stories that turned out well, unfortunately they all don't turn out well. These are examples that people when left to their own can make good decisions, the government didn't need to force any of this decisions upon any of them.

I'm glad your gay friends had the opportunity to adopt a child, as many know don't have that right because gay adoption is banned in some states because the fine enlightened loving folk think that is wrong.

I really don't need any convincing with regards to abortion, I think it is a bad decision. I just defend the rights of individuals to make their own decisions even bad ones that I disagree with, just as I defend the right for people to say things I disagree with, the right to follow any religion or no religion and the right for individuals to own firearms. To me these are all the same thing, individual rights. One can't pick and choose which individual rights they like, you take them all or you take none.

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Originally Posted by Hutch

I really don't need any convincing with regards to abortion, I think it is a bad decision. I just defend the rights of individuals to make their own decisions even bad ones that I disagree with, just as I defend the right for people to say things I disagree with, the right to follow any religion or no religion and the right for individuals to own firearms. To me these are all the same thing, individual rights. One can't pick and choose which individual rights they like, you take them all or you take none.

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The funniest thing about this debate is everyone seems to really agree. And I do think there is considerable room for positive movement on this issue, because behind the positioning most people agree on this and should be able to focus on the issues and values that lead to the situation.

But I don't think it's as simple as favoring all versus favoring no individual rights. What about restricting the individual right to:

1. use crack, and then burden all of us
2. kill someone that is ****ing you off
3. own automatic weapons
4. sleep in your neighbor's house because it's nicer than yours
5. not allow people of a different race eat in your restaurant
6. refuse to hire gay people as employees
7. resist the draft

We aren't as free as we'd like to think, and we can't be if we want to live next to each other and thrive. Abortion is particularly testy because it pits two fundamental invidual liberties - the freedom not to have something grow for months in your own body, and the right to life of the life that's in your body. So for me its a weighting of profound and conflicting individual liberties, not a question of whether you do or don't support individual liberties, and unfotunately we have to pick and choose here because you can't have it both ways.

Two questions for many of you on the opposite side of the aisle, and I mean this sincerely, not as a baitng.

1. If you don't think a fetus is human life, then why do you think it's a bad decision or an immoral decision to abort it?

2. If it only took two weeks to carry a fetus to term instead of nine months, would you support a ban on abortion? [ie are we really talking about the right not to be unreasonably imposed upon for nearly a year, and the right not to be shamed publicly]

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Originally Posted by loueedacat

The funniest thing about this debate is everyone seems to really agree. And I do think there is considerable room for positive movement on this issue, because behind the positioning most people agree on this and should be able to focus on the issues and values that lead to the situation.

But I don't think it's as simple as favoring all versus favoring no individual rights. What about restricting the individual right to:

1. use crack, and then burden all of us
2. kill someone that is ****ing you off
3. own automatic weapons
4. sleep in your neighbor's house because it's nicer than yours
5. not allow people of a different race eat in your restaurant
6. refuse to hire gay people as employees
7. resist the draft

We aren't as free as we'd like to think, and we can't be if we want to live next to each other and thrive. Abortion is particularly testy because it pits two fundamental invidual liberties - the freedom not to have something grow for months in your own body, and the right to life of the life that's in your body. So for me its a weighting of profound and conflicting individual liberties, not a question of whether you do or don't support individual liberties, and unfotunately we have to pick and choose here because you can't have it both ways.

Two questions for many of you on the opposite side of the aisle, and I mean this sincerely, not as a baitng.

1. If you don't think a fetus is human life, then why do you think it's a bad decision or an immoral decision to abort it?

2. If it only took two weeks to carry a fetus to term instead of nine months, would you support a ban on abortion? [ie are we really talking about the right not to be unreasonably imposed upon for nearly a year, and the right not to be shamed publicly]

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1. use crack, and then burden all of us

Not sure under what right this falls under, but personally I'm against most of the prohibition on drugs. I believe it should be tackled in a different way, as incarcerating people for simple possession and use has done nothing but brought about more social problems.

2. kill someone that is ****ing you off

Again this a basic principle of law, and is covered by a right, that being free speach, which allows you to say things that may make people angry. As well as the right to life , liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

3. own automatic weapons

Technically one should be able to own an automatic weapon, so I don't know what you are getting at. There is no qualifier in the constitution as to what arms actually it has been argued that th arms it talks about are the ones that people try to ban most that being assualt/military type weapons including full auto weapons. It's definitely not there to protect hunting weapons.

4. sleep in your neighbor's house because it's nicer than yours.

One has property rights so this is covered.

5. not allow people of a different race eat in your restaurant

All men (man as in human so it includes women) are created equal, thus discriminating against ones race, sexual orientation, or beliefs is wrong

6. refuse to hire gay people as employees

All men (man as in human so it includes women) are created equal, thus discriminating against one, because of race, sexual orientation, or beliefs is wrong.

7. resist the draft

It could be argued that there are constitutional rights that do allow this. If it is a responsibilty of citizenship one could allows renounce their citizenship.


As for why I personally would not choose abortion at this time in my life, under most circumstances that I could foresee is that I'm financially secure, have a support network and could provide a decent life for a child. He has nothing to do with a blastocyst, embryo, or fetus IS a child, because for me it isn't, it has the potential to be a child, just as more than 18% of fertilized eggs that do not implant themselves are not children. For this reason I have no problem foreseeing some circumstances where abortion could be considered, if my wife was raped, if my wife's life was in jeopardy, or if after numerous tests the fetus has serious defects that my wife and I feel that we could not deal with.

I prefer to have the decision left with me and not made by others that have no stake in the decision.

As for your hypothetical question regarding two week gestation, really it doesn't matter as that isn't the fact. If blastocyst, embryos, and fetus could be removed and grown in some other method I really don't think there would be any need for abortions. There would be a big need for orphanages, because there would be lots of children that no one wanted. There most likely would be a need for more prisons too as some of these products of the state grew up and became criminals, violent criminals at that.

As for your hypothetical question regarding two week gestation, really it doesn't matter as that isn't the fact. If blastocyst, embryos, and fetus could be removed and grown in some other method I really don't think there would be any need for abortions. There would be a big need for orphanages, because there would be lots of children that no one wanted. There most likely would be a need for more prisons too as some of these products of the state grew up and became criminals, violent criminals at that.[/quote]

It does matter if it clarifies the nature of the debate, because it would elucidate what "libertY' we are really talking about. You say then you would see no need for abortion if pregnancy was a two week burden - would you then support a ban on abortion? And why if it's not human? And is your current objection therefore really the magnitude of the inconvenience imposed by a nine month pregnancy? [and I'm not talking rape and health of mother cases, which I agree are different]

On the other items, you are picking and choosing which individual liberties you think have a priority - which is what we all do.