Thread: I never know what to say about such things!

Originally Posted by JMS

...I told my father I was scared and killed the snake but he knew better. he said "No you weren't. You wanted to kill the snake." He was right. when I turned to face the snake there was little in the way of fear...but I chose to kill the poor creature and then proceeded to lie to myself and my father, to further convince myself of the rightness of my action.

Your father was a pretty smart man, and he clearly helped to make you a very self-aware person.


People do what they do because of emotion and then rationalize it with their intellect.

Originally Posted by Olivia

If you want to stop that, stop science and all the monitoring of pregnancies and - most importantly stop scientific interest in malformations.
Basically a woman only has the choice to keep her legs together but that wouldn't please you guys either, would it?

Abortion for science? never heard of that. How about we just wait until the fetus is to full term, and then harvest the organs for transplant patients. If abortion is science then this would be also.

Also, you are correct, the woman's choice is to keep her legs closed. REVELATION! Sex is a choice. Live with the consequences of your actions. The man's choice is to keep it in his pants, but women wouldn't be happy with that either.

Right now the women have all of the choices. Man and woman have sex, child is conceived. Woman does not want to have it because she is only 18 and not ready to be a mother, man does want to have it, he has no choice when it come to his child. if she wants to kill it, the she kills it. She escapes the consequences of her actions. He lives with the fact that the mother of his child killed his kid before the child even took its first breath.

Man and woman have sex, child is conceived. Man does not want it because he is only 18 and not ready to be a father, woman does want to have it. Child is born, and man is saddled with the burden and responsibility of the child despite not being ready for this responsibility. He drops out of college to pay the child support, but she will only allow him to visit one weekend a month.

There should be a legal equivalent of an "abortion" for the man, given that a woman has this option. the man should be able to sign a document that states that "as to me, this child is aborted" and he is free to go about his life without the burden of having a child before he is ready. This is only fair, as right now, the only option for the man is to keep it in his pants. If its fair for the woman then its fair for the man.

personally I find all of this abhorrent, as this discussion should not even have to take place. Live with the consequences of your actions, they may just be the best part of your life.

The morals of our country reek like a rotten corpse, both in the killing of this doctor and in the fact that this doctor could do what he did.

Matt

Edit: to clarify, my legal option for the man statment is only my "what's good for the goose should be good for the gander" statement. I do not support it, but it makes a point.

I allow lots of discussions in my classes, but if the topic of abortion comes up, I shut it down. Everyone has already made up their minds, and it just becomes a shouting match. I prefer to pick my battles in favor of something that I have a chance at. If you want to help some kid not to have an abortion, there are lots of options: be kind to them, help them out, give of your time, and even your money, let them know you care. Harassing or shooting doctors, bombing clinics, these are terrorist tactics. God may be displeased with abortion, but I would think that all the hatred flowing freely among the debaters grieves him as well.

Originally Posted by norman931

I allow lots of discussions in my classes, but if the topic of abortion comes up, I shut it down. Everyone has already made up their minds, and it just becomes a shouting match. I prefer to pick my battles in favor of something that I have a chance at. If you want to help some kid not to have an abortion, there are lots of options: be kind to them, help them out, give of your time, and even your money, let them know you care. Harassing or shooting doctors, bombing clinics, these are terrorist tactics. God may be displeased with abortion, but I would think that all the hatred flowing freely among the debaters grieves him as well.

I fear you are mistaking hatred of a person for hatred of an action. I see no hatred of a person in any of the posts, either from the pro-death/pro-choice posters, or from the pro-life/anti-choice posters. I have consistently been amazed by the way the members of this forum can discuss controversial topics in a gentlemanly manner, and this thread is no exception.

Matt

mhailey it is really so that a healthy pregnancy is totally uninteresting for science. Hence they search for all kinds of abnormal things by constant and brief monitoring and are very interested in getting their hands on those cells for research.
Nowadays you're almost a bad person when you decide to give birth to a child that will probably have a disability. Doctors strongly advise not to carry them out.
In germany thats no big deal. You have a health insurance and your child will be covered. In the US you won't even get health isurance for a disabled child.
On the other hand, there are so many couples who cannot have kids.
They go through hell to get one by all kinds of modern science and sometimes succeed and have a healthy child.

There is no way back into the old days where you were in gods hands and for a lot of women thats a real benefit cause life is sweet (sometimes).

It's Ironic to murder someone because your against murder, isn't it. Two wrongs don't make a right. As Joe said, This is a free country. We have the right to vote and change laws we disagree with. What ever your political views are your political views. I don't like kids that wear their pants falling off, and showing off their boxers. I'm not going to kill them.

Originally Posted by mhailey

I fear you are mistaking hatred of a person for hatred of an action. I see no hatred of a person in any of the posts, either from the pro-death/pro-choice posters, or from the pro-life/anti-choice posters. I have consistently been amazed by the way the members of this forum can discuss controversial topics in a gentlemanly manner, and this thread is no exception.

Matt

Could be. My judgment isn't always the best, which is another good reason for me to choose my battles carefully.

Originally Posted by mhailey

Edit: to clarify, my legal option for the man statment is only my "what's good for the goose should be good for the gander" statement. I do not support it, but it makes a point.

There is a built-in physiological asymmetry, so your logic doesn't quite work.
Once the sperm has met the egg, the man is completely decoupled from the fetus/baby, while in short time the woman's body is attached to the fetus/baby via the placenta.
Unfortunately for now if a woman decides she needs to be in complete control of her part of this joint system, the fetus/baby is hosed.
Once the baby is born that's not a problem, she can sign him/her off and somebody else who is more interested (government or private entity) can take care of him/her.

May be one day there will be artificial wombs and then fetuses/babies will no doubt be in the same position as the born babies, and can just be transferred to another place where another interested party would take care of them instead. In fact such entities can make as many babies as they want from the already fertilized and frozen eggs which are abundant.

But until then the time between conception and birth is qualitatively different from the time after birth. And that's recognized in the US laws.

You know what I'd like to see? The ability to transplant a foetus from one person to another. Ideally even to men, but being realistic, any possibility of this could only be to another woman.

Why would I like to see this? Because then, when a woman decided she wanted to end her own pregnancy the "pro-lifers" would be queueing up round the block to offer their services as hosts. Right? Right?

Or would their passion for protecting life suddenly become more muted if they had to go through the pregnancy they claim to care so much about?

I find it shocking that anti-abortionists won't accept that a pregnant woman is a person too, and has AT LEAST the same rights as a foetus. Even if you view the foetus as a full person, how can you throw the woman's rights out of the window in favour of the child? The woman is the one providing the growing environment to the child, not the other way round. If that woman views that child as a parasite growing inside her (and that is a perfectly accurate view in a technical sense) why should be she be denied the right to end the situation?

It boils down to pitting person A's rights against person B's rights. Just because B is dependent on A, is that justification for forcing A to continue the relationship? Surely as the giver, A should be the one entitled to choose what happens?...

... Certainly not some person C who wants to impose their "ethics" on the situation.

EDIT> I guess I've gone off-topic, but I bet the brave assassin who fearlessly gunned down the defenceless 67 year old doctor in church wouldn't be volunteering as a host should medical science ever make it possible.

Originally Posted by mhailey

The morals of our country reek like a rotten corpse...

Matt

Matt, I'd love to quote you for my signature line!

Chris L