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I recommend that you read Morris Kline's "Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty."
Mathematics has been our most effective link with the world of sense perceptions and though it is discomfiting to have to grant that its foundations are not secure, it is still the most precious jewel of the human mind and must be treasured and husbanded.
-- Morris Kline, Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty
Although the woman typically has the burden of carrying the child for 9 months, men are frequently forced by courts to pay for a baby for 18 years. I'd rather have the 9 months myself if choosing between the 2. The man gets to suffer from bank account depletion, high blood pressure, and mental disorders brought on by constant games being played with visitation rights.
Tnbound2day -
I do think a woman has the final choice on whether to abort or not, but she should also bear the financial responsibility if the guy declines. If she chooses to have the kid and the man wishes her to abort he should then sign away all rights to the child, financially and otherwise. She, on the other hand, should show means of support for the kid and that she will not be bringing an additional burden on our taxes into the world.
I recently found out that these Mormon fringe groups with huge families are supported, in large part, by our welfare system. The multiple moms just said they did not know who the father was. Now that the government is getting after testing the ilegal marriage dads' DNA, there are many groups all over the country, with a base of operations in Utah, giving seminars on get rich quick schemes, making a living over the internet, investment software sales, etc, etc, etc. They call fleecing the non-Mormons 'bleeding the beast'. Heck!
Mathematics has been our most effective link with the world of sense perceptions and though it is discomfiting to have to grant that its foundations are not secure, it is still the most precious jewel of the human mind and must be treasured and husbanded.
-- Morris Kline, Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty
You might want to read the ENTIRE book, please. Consider also that the key attribute of mathematics is that it is FORMAL, not OBJECTIVE. The Kline book examines the historical bases of the notion that the content and enterprise of mathematics are reliable, even certain, due to its inherently formal nature, as well as the philosophical challenges to that notion that came about during the 20th century.
P.S. "Unborn baby" is an oxymoron.
Last edited by ParkTwain; 09-02-2007 at 07:14 PM..
I think it is positively shocking that a religion does not just as strongly protest against things like Viagra, which frequently encourage more men to have 'fun' sex, while it will penalize women who are stuck with their 'F'-children by forcing them to live through a long, deforming, and painful pregnancy. More trash!
This is just another stupid way that a religion will put down a woman for being sexual, even in today's enlightened age, while men are still encouraged by religion to sew their wild oats.
This is why so many women, once the mainstay of the church, are leaving. People with brains realize the outdated hypocracy of it all.
Dogma prevents people from interfacing with reality. It is not healthy.
It would seem to me that woman who have had abortions are better off, mentally, than those who go through a pregnancy and give up the child to some strangers. It would seem as though the disruption to life and career and the addition expense and the wear and tear on the body should be shared by the man involved. If that were the case, we would not be discussing this.
Could you just imagine a world in which a pill would assist a woman, sexually, perhaps making every woman multiply orgasmic? Could you see a society in which women would chase men for sex, and if there were a pregnancy, it would be put into a pouch of some sort, and the man would have to carry it around with him all day and feed it and bear the expenses, and it would deplete his body of calcium and nourishment, and cause him to have a beer belly and at the end of almost a year of this he would have to be beat up by a professional boxer before the thing was taken away from him?
Have you ever had an abortion?
Do you have children?
How dare you say that pregnancy is deforming, painful, and terrible at best? I had a 9 pound baby and yes, my body is far different from what it used to be. Do I miss my slim figure? My ability to wear a skimpy bathing suit? My full 8 hours of sleep? Yes, of course... But when I look at my child, does it matter? No, it doesn't.
Whether or not you have made the decision to get pregnant, you have been given a child. You may believe it is a scientific phenomena, I believe it is from God. To a person that decides to have a child, it is the greatest gift & it is considered a human to them from the time they find out (generally speaking). To someone who doesn't, there are many emotions involved, especially if you hadn't planned on getting pregnant. You're scared, maybe ashamed, don't know if you can afford it, all kinds of things are going through your head. So then you decide to abort your baby. Then you feel guilty, ashamed, shunned, regretful, etc. So what's the difference? After you have the baby you can either provide a home for it through adoption if you don't want to or can't care for it, or you can bite the bullet and take responsibility for that human being that is 50% YOU. From the time a baby develops it has limbs, organs, movement. This isn't a human to you? Funny, because most humans I know have limbs and organs and move.
I had an abortion at the age of 17, and thank goodness that my beliefs allowed me to deal with it appropriately (to what I believe) and I don't suffer every day because of my decision. I thought my parents would be so mad, they would disown me, that I couldn't afford a baby. By that time I was 17 weeks pregnant. I made the decision to have an abortion and have regretted it since. I didn't even tell the man I ended up marrying until 2 years into our marriage because it is so shameful to most women that you want to hide it forever. How then, is that being more mentally stable then knowing your child is living a good life somewhere with parents that couldn't have children? They gave up their lives to raise someone that isn't even a part of them. That's a big sacrifice to make, plus they have to spend years bonding with that child because they don't have the parental bond most families have with their own children. Sure, the birth mother (and/or father) would miss their child, but to me it is much better to make that sacrifice in your life then to have to feel ashamed, guilty, and regretful every day for a long, long time. The pain of giving your child away, to me, would be much less than the pain of killing your child.
Yes, I do believe in God. Some don't. For each person it is their own decision. But who are you to tell someone pregnancy is so horrible, how could they want to do that to themselves at a time so "inconvenient"? Does anyone ever stop to think of the pain a woman has when they have tried for years to get pregnant and can't? The failure and the dissapointment they feel for not being able to carry out what they want the most? Shame on you for being so selfish. Sorry you don't want to be uncomfortable for 9 months. Sorry you don't mind killing your child. I'm really sorry that you don't think life is worth a little pain on your part. I do.
Ask anyone who has given a child up for adoption - yes, it is hard. Yes, you think about that child each and every day. Yes, it's painful. But your heart is soothed knowing your child is alive and well and being cared for by someone who had a big enough heart to extend their love to a child they'd never met. Ask anyone who's had an abortion - yes, it's scary. Yes, it's humiliating. Yes, you think of what your child would be like all the time. Yes, you wish you had changed your mind.
Of course, I am speaking from my experience. If you have had an abortion for medical reasons (or otherwise), that was your decision. But my point is that no one can speak for the majority. And for this being a male/female issue, why even question it? You can't change the fact that this does mostly affect women. A man deals with emotions differently than women do also. It is still ultimately the woman's decison, no one can control that. But that's not men's fault.
Also, think of the young teens who have abortions. Some would argue that a teen's brain is not fully developed, leaving them incapable of making rational decisions. It is SO easy to obtain an abortion without your parents knowledge. All you have to do is tell the judge "Oh, my parents are religious. They would kill me if they knew I was pregnant." And the judge says, "ok." Simple as that. Then they suffer the consequences!
In conclusion I would say yes, to each their own. But don't think that abortion is a minor thing. "Oh, not the right time, I'll kill my child". It doesn't work that way.
Since when did humans define life and what is life. From a scientific view life beings at conception. So that would be a good start, and I think most would agree life does start at conception. I'm not talking about the legal view of when an abortion can and can't be done. If life starts at conception just accept you will kill that life if you have an abortion. So while you would like to call it a "fetus" reality is that is life with a heartbeat, brain, hands, feet, expressions, and nerve endings. While the doctor cuts up the baby in pieces to do the abortion and then pulls the parts out piece by piece. Remember is was YOUR Choice and I think you should be held accountable for your Choice and your REASONS will go into the judgement on you.
Thank you for being open minded enough to consider that rearing children is not the right thing for everyone and for leaving the decision on whether or not to abort to the woman.
I know that I would have no guilt at all in aborting, should the occaision arise. I see human life as being not much more special than that of the other animals, and I am a meat eater. That is not to say that there may not be a spiritual component to life, but whatever god there may be does not seem to mind wiping out masses of people himself, so I cannot see how one child can matter much.
I think the encouragement to be fruitful and teachings about the sacredness of life and the taboos on abortion, if there ever were any, were totally self-serving and man-made in a time when tribal people had to keep their numbers high in order to thrive. Today, it is just the opposite. 'Too many people' are choking the planet and may end up killing us all eventually. 'Too many people' are causing wars over a tiny bit of space their primitive ancestors felt some romantic attachment to. 'Too many people', as in all commodities, means life will become cheaper and cheaper and wars and plagues more frequent. If we do not cut our numbers down and cut out this claptrap about all life being sacred, god or nature will do it for us in the form of war and plague.
People have sex for various reasons. I think young girls need to feel self-worth, need to have personal goals that a baby would impose upon, need to feel loved by her parents. Many parents today do not have the skills that go with rearing a child properly. Many do nothing to contribute to their child's ability to survive in an increasingly complex world. Many parents work too hard for their kid and family and consequently do not have the time to spend with the child so the kid feels neglected and goes for attention and love and meaning elsewhere.
I object to the bleeding hearts in today's society, somehow claiming that all men and woman have the same feelings for their offspring. It just is not true. Woman just bs their way through these issues saying things like 'my decision tore my heart out, but at the time it was all I could think of to do'. That is just plain garbage. We make our decisons in our own self interest and should not feel obligated to mouth the 'politically correct' emotional milksop afterwards.
THe fact is, there are woman and men who really do NOT want children. THis could be god or nature's way of discouraging 'bad' seeds from sprouting. These people probably should not genetically reproduce.
There are many adopted kids who have problems. Is this because they are in a genetic family not their own, or is it some genetic trait of discontent that they have received from their biological parents?
Perhaps some children should not be born. Charlie Manson, Sam Berkowitz(adopted), Ted Bundy, Hitler, come to mind. If you had known then about these people, who would not encourage their mothers to abort?
As we delve more into genetics we may find that some people are born with a mental proclivity to prey on others. Sure, you can look into the past of 'some' of these guys and see troubled areas, but many 'normal' people have had the same difficulties and not turned out to be killers.
I wonder what people will say about every child being god's if it is found that some babies are born with some very, very, nasty genes?
The truth is that the dogma 'sacredness of life' was good for a globe that was sparsely populated, but spells a death sentence in these days if everyone believed it. The truth is that life can become sacred if we are genetically fortunate and if we nurture and cultivate and love our children in a stress free (as much as possible) setting. In today's complex and demanding world, this is increasingly difficult to do. Rather than rear a child in a bad way or just not care as it is developing, it is a much better thing to abort.
Since when did humans define life and what is life. From a scientific view life beings at conception. So that would be a good start, and I think most would agree life does start at conception. I'm not talking about the legal view of when an abortion can and can't be done. If life starts at conception just accept you will kill that life if you have an abortion. So while you would like to call it a "fetus" reality is that is life with a heartbeat, brain, hands, feet, expressions, and nerve endings. While the doctor cuts up the baby in pieces to do the abortion and then pulls the parts out piece by piece. Remember is was YOUR Choice and I think you should be held accountable for your Choice and your REASONS will go into the judgement on you.
I do not give one fig when life begins. Animal life is just animal life and it bothers me not in the least to abort. The 'judgement' malarky is yours, Ms, from religious brainwashing that you cannot reason your way out of, and you take that with you.
I think the sin of Onan had to do with spilling seed. Any guy masterbating should wait until he can find a willing female victim to carry his kid. If you like to be thought of in biblical terms, that's your decision. I think more of myself than a seed-carrier. But then, some women are wonderfully suited for having children and some are not.
Butchers pull apart meat constantly and feel no remorse over it. God, in the OT has wiped out entire races and not felt a twinge. This talk of a fetus being sacred makes no sense at all. You eat eggs, don't you?
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