Thread: Abortion: split from stem cell research

How about this one: People who believe that abortion is wrong have the right to convince the rest of the country of that view, provided they use legal means. People who believe otherwise have the same right.

In the meantime, however, wouldn't it be nice if we also concentrated on things on which we can agree, like the fact that the U.S. has one of the highest abortion rates of any developed nation, which is stupid and embarrassing. Then, while we try to convince one another, we can also do things on which we can agree to address that issue. Like reducing the number of unplanned pregnancies.

I'm sure that both sides are ready to shoot me now, right?

j

Originally Posted by Hutch

Here is an idea how about those that don't believe in the right to have abortions don't have them, and those that don't believe in fetal stem cells don't participate in the research or partake in any of the benefits derived from it and if they don't believe in IVF don't have it. These are all based on religious beliefs and as such the government should stay out of it.

There's an upside too it's just all those liberals having abortions, the more they have the less offspring and hey the religious right shall rise again.

I believe the idea behind a society and law is to protect those who cannot protect themselves. As a parallel: why is murder itself illegal? As long as the guy isn't actually murdering YOU, what do you care if someone goes out ands murders someone else? Why should that be illegal? That's an issue between the two individual parties, isn't it?

Originally Posted by Seraphim

I believe the idea behind a society and law is to protect those who cannot protect themselves. As a parallel: why is murder itself illegal? As long as the guy isn't actually murdering YOU, what do you care if someone goes out ands murders someone else? Why should that be illegal? That's an issue between the two individual parties, isn't it?

Yes murder is wrong, because that is the killing of a human being. If a fetus is a human being that would make your God one of the greatest serial killers in history, after all he would be responsible for every spontaneous abortion. What about the potential life that is expelled in every egg when a woman has a period?

Originally Posted by Nord Jim

How about this one: People who believe that abortion is wrong have the right to convince the rest of the country of that view, provided they use legal means. People who believe otherwise have the same right.

In the meantime, however, wouldn't it be nice if we also concentrated on things on which we can agree, like the fact that the U.S. has one of the highest abortion rates of any developed nation, which is stupid and embarrassing. Then, while we try to convince one another, we can also do things on which we can agree to address that issue. Like reducing the number of unplanned pregnancies.

I'm sure that both sides are ready to shoot me now, right?

j

I agree.

The problem is the US is also one of the most ignorant (education wise) of the industrial world too, that might have something to do with it.

Stopping unwanted pregnancies would be great but the pro-lifers don't like education or birth control either. There whole plan is to scare them not to have sex, which hasn't worked so well.

For the record I'm not pro-abortion, actually I don't know anyone who is, I'm pro-choice, which includes the right for people to make choices which I personally don't agree with.

Originally Posted by Hutch

Actually it is a conundrum. The fatal flaw with the religious argument.

As someone with family members that could be assisted by stem cell research i take it a little more personally and serioously than an amusing argument.

They are so worried about saving the "unborn" that they don't give a damn about those that already are.

Yet the unborn should have every right to grow up to be someone's family member, or loved one as well. Why should life be denied to them for the sake of someone else?

Originally Posted by Seraphim

Yet the unborn should have every right to grow up to be someone's family member, or loved one as well. Why should life be denied to them for the sake of someone else?

Well now were back to the start, I don't believe anyone has had an abortion to participate in stem cell research. So it really is absolutely no different than organ donation, basically using something that would have been discarded anyways. So it would be something good coming from something bad that had already happened anyways.

Including the many that are discarded during fertility procedures.

Originally Posted by Hutch

Well now were back to the start, I don't believe anyone has had an abortion to participate in stem cell research. So it really is absolutely no different than organ donation, basically using something that would have been discarded anyways. So it would be something good coming from something bad that had already happened anyways.

Including the many that are discarded during fertility procedures.

And then that leads to the discussion of abortion not being right in the first place either....

Originally Posted by Hutch

I agree.

The problem is the US is also one of the most ignorant (education wise) of the industrial world too, that might have something to do with it.

Stopping unwanted pregnancies would be great but the pro-lifers don't like education or birth control either. There whole plan is to scare them not to have sex, which hasn't worked so well.

For the record I'm not pro-abortion, actually I don't know anyone who is, I'm pro-choice, which includes the right for people to make choices which I personally don't agree with.

What you say is absolutely true. Nobody is "pro-abortion."

I also agree that anti-choice factions have a pretty poor record on prevention. Part of it, I'm sure, is the significant Roman Catholic component of the anti-choice crowd which eliminates birth control as a possibility, but they sure would have more credibility on their "reverence for life" if prohibition weren't the only avenue they were pursuing. I'm convinced that this is at least in part due to the anti-choice politicians who just want abortion as a wedge issue and have no intention in this world of ever reducing the number performed. Look at it this way: "conservatives" controlled Congress for 12 years, and I believe that they only proposed a "Pro-Life" amendment to the constitution once, and that was just a token.

The real issue for me is whether I can accept the notion that government has the right to tell someone what to do with his or her own body. For me, prohibited abortion is the moral equivalent of forced abortion. Neither is morally acceptable. They're both fascistic, as far as I'm concerned.

j

Yikes! Okay, I'm staying out of this one, the stem cell one AND the "they are taking my dog away" threads for sure!

Yes, that all make for intersting discussions but on SRP they tend to head down the slippery slope.

Tony

Originally Posted by Nord Jim

What you say is absolutely true. Nobody is "pro-abortion."

The real issue for me is whether I can accept the notion that government has the right to tell someone what to do with his or her own body. For me, prohibited abortion is the moral equivalent of forced abortion. Neither is morally acceptable. They're both fascistic, as far as I'm concerned.

j

I know of a guy in med school attending in Kansas City right now who is pro abortion. Hands down flat out pro.


Re: the government having the right to tell you what to do with your own body - In most standard cases (there are obvious tragic exceptions to this) people have the right to choose what to do with their body. I feel that I'm pro choice where and when it counts. You have the choice to have unprotected sex or not: the result of this choice determines whether or not you have a fetus growing inside of you. The "with your own body" is then called into question; is it truly "your OWN body" now? Or your body AND that of another human you've created? At the commission of abortion, we rob the fetus of it's freedom of choice entirely.

But, on the other hand, if abortion is banned, then how many young girls, at the behest of responsibility-dodging boyfriends will show up at an ER due to a coat hanger abortion gone wrong?

Can it be banned absolutely? Then who should decide what occurs in instances of rape, incest, etc? I hope that I never have to wear the shoes of that individual.

I don't care to truly weigh in on the pro/anti abortion debate except to say that I am pro-responsibility. I feel that we must own up to our actions and face the consequences. The nation as a whole has be come a convenience driven entity. Being upset when told that they can't talk on the cell phone and drive, or become frustrated and impatient when their microwave dinner takes several minutes, or that they are going to have to face years of work because they wanted to feel the pleasures of of intimacy, but not the biological result thereof. (Or that they have to strop a razor before they can shave with it! Why not just shave and throw it away?!@?!)

I'll go back to cooking my stir fry....