News & Politics - The abortion debate - Page 4

migamoo · 12-07-2007, 10:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ceilirose (View Post)

It will never be clear to me why the topic of a woman's reproductive system is at the forefront of a national debate and why perfect strangers who literally don't have a clue about what goes on in a person's life can have such power.

Me neither. I think it falls under a person's right to privacy, myself.

elisheva · 12-08-2007, 01:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ceilirose (View Post)

I never thought of it that way but telling someone they can't have an abortion or a certain type of medical procedure (even if it would benefit you) is just as bad as telling someone that they need to get an abortion.

Legislating that no one can have abortions is just as bad as, for example, legislating that everyone in a specific situation must abort. This just isn't an area where the government, whichever level of government it may be, has a right to intervene.

**sunnykerr** · 12-09-2007, 11:27 AM

I know I'm repeating myself, but the really scary thing about legislating against abortion, for me anyway, and aside from the EXCELLENT points made by ceilirose, Ashley and elisheva on the subject, is that having legal abortions has, in the end, very little to do with people getting abortions per se.

What it has to do with is the guarantee that women who want to have an abortion, can have one without putting their own lives in danger.

So, when the right to an abortion is outlawed, it's not like fetuses who would have otherwise been aborted are suddenly going to reach babyhood. Maybe not every single one of them, but the pregnant wouldbe mothers will find other ways to have an abortion. Only, this time, it won't be in a safe environment. That's all that accomplishes.

elisheva · 12-09-2007, 12:04 PM

I think that really is the most important point of all.

By outlawing abortions (or making access so difficult it may as well be illegal) you're just condemning women to unsafe and potentially fatal abortions. Or you end up like Romania, where Ceausescu thought banning abortions would magically solve his population problems and they just ended up with thousands of miserable, malnourished children in orphanages.

m&m fkan · 12-12-2007, 07:16 PM

Abortion is always fatal. A baby is killed. There is no argument that will make that right to me, as a Catholic.
I can't judge a person for what they've done, but I can still think that it's a wrongful act.

migamoo · 12-12-2007, 09:39 PM

I think you have to look at how "fatal" it is objectively. Yes, one could argue it's fatal because it's taking the life of an embryo/fetus but if done safely, the procedure is not fatal for the woman. I think it all comes down to who you place the most importance in.

cyanide rose · 12-13-2007, 02:44 AM

I'm strongly pro-choice. If I were to fall pregnant currently, I more than likely would not choose to abort. But I don't think it's my place or the place of politicians to say or decide what is right for other women.

chadsprincess1 · 12-13-2007, 02:58 AM

^ITA on that..

m&m fkan · 12-14-2007, 12:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fieryangel (View Post)

I think you have to look at how "fatal" it is objectively. Yes, one could argue it's fatal because it's taking the life of an embryo/fetus but if done safely, the procedure is not fatal for the woman. I think it all comes down to who you place the most importance in.

Ooops...the dreaded double post....

m&m fkan · 12-14-2007, 12:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fieryangel (View Post)

I think you have to look at how "fatal" it is objectively. Yes, one could argue it's fatal because it's taking the life of an embryo/fetus but if done safely, the procedure is not fatal for the woman. I think it all comes down to who you place the most importance in.

See, that's the thing. I don't have too look at it objectively. I believe what I believe, and nothing any one says will make it right, in my eyes...just the same as nothing that I say will make it wrong in yours.

a life taken is still a life taken.

ceilirose · 12-14-2007, 08:20 AM

Double post!

ceilirose · 12-14-2007, 08:32 AM

A woman's life will potentially be taken because a certain type of late term abortion procedure has been banned. The pro life groups consider that a victory.

Thousands of embryos are destroyed in fertililty clinics in the US and around the world. No one says a word about that.

You can get an abortion if you've been raped but you can't if you conceive by consensual sex.

I don't think this issue can get anywhere if we don't start talking about it an objective, rational manner.

migamoo · 12-14-2007, 09:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by m&m fkan (View Post)

See, that's the thing. I don't have too look at it objectively. I believe what I believe, and nothing any one says will make it right, in my eyes...just the same as nothing that I say will make it wrong in yours.

a life taken is still a life taken.

I wasn't talking about you personally, but more of a general you. I can understand, and appreciate how you feel about abortion. I'm not trying to make you change your beliefs. But what I do think is that if people don't try to look at abortion from an open perspective, and try to understand/listen to what the other side is putting forth, the debate will get nowhere fast.

**sunnykerr** · 12-15-2007, 02:58 PM

I think the debate has done nowhere fast. Seriously, it's not like we see a lot of people sitting down and trying to come up with mutual understanding. Or, even, allowing the possibility that what one feels isn't necessarily for everyone.

I always thought that the legalization of abortion wasn't a moral issue. I know that seems to fly in the face of the pro-life argument, but I'm really not trying to be trite or overly glib when I say that. I understand that people oppose abortion on moral and sometimes religious grounds. I have all the respect in the world for that. I think it's wonderful to have a code of ethics and a spiritual system to guide one's life. I wouldn't want to have mine be questioned, so I wouldn't want to question someone else's. And, in the event that part of that came off as supremely patronizing, that really wasn't my intent.

The only problem I have is that sometimes people who have a code of ethics, and I mean to target no one here in particular but rather people I've met in my own life and (in a sense) I do include myself in that group, tend to want to impose that code on others. And there's nothing wrong with putting forth one's system of belief. But I do think it can sometimes lead all of us into absolutism, and I don't see how absolutism works in a pluralistic world. Not everyone sees things the same way, and I don't see why one group ought to or even should impose its view on other people.

If a person doesn't believe in abortion for moral or religious or whatever other reason there might be, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. It's a perfectly legitimate point of view. I don't think it particularly requires defending either. But I do think it means that so and so shouldn't have recourse to abortions. And then have it end at that.

Another person shouldn't be forbidden from having one because a group doesn't believe they should.

fetch · 12-16-2007, 05:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by m&m fkan (View Post)

Abortion is always fatal. A baby is killed. There is no argument that will make that right to me, as a Catholic.
I can't judge a person for what they've done, but I can still think that it's a wrongful act.

But... the Bible doesn't talk about abortion or a woman terminating her own pregnancy.