How exactly would you respond to this pro-life argument? (status, world, kids)

[Grizzly Addams]

Originally Posted by hothulamaui

the mother is more important than a fetus, which is why some anti choice folks are ok with abortion to save the mother's life.

murder in the case of abortion is subjective. I do not view it as such and neither does the law.

there is no personhood for a developing being in the womb. it has no liberties.

women do have the right to privacy over their own health care. their decisions do not violate any one else.

you can't speak for frozen embryos? why not, you are speaking for the innocent unborn, of which they are.

They violate the potential father.

[hothulamaui]

Originally Posted by Grizzly Addams

They violate the potential father.

men need to be responsible for their own reproduction and not leave it to the woman.

[lkb0714]

Originally Posted by Grizzly Addams

They violate the potential father.

This would be more amenable if any potential complications resulting from said unwanted pregnancy and forcing a woman to bring a fetus to term were shared by the "potential father". Medically the issues related to pregnancy, risks from labor, etc can all be "shared" if an unwanted pregnancy is forced on a woman. Would potential fathers still sign up if they suffered the same risks from infertility to death? Might be a good litimus test.

[functionofx]

Originally Posted by lkb0714

There is a difference between body autonomy and financial autonomy, he standard for the former is much more strict than the latter.




So since you believe life begins as conception you are against all forms of hormonal birth control and methods like iuds right?

No, there is a separate human being, who is killed by other human beings when an abortion is performed. The human killed, doesn't have much input to the process. At conception, a complete human has been created. As to body autonomy, this would permit you to abort those who are disabled at any time in life?

The condition of being in the womb, and maturing there, is a virtually 100% curable condition within about 9 months. Would you kill a human who was in need of support from another for 9 months?

All humans are conceived by an act of sex, or a sex proxy by other human beings. As such all deserve protection.

[Nozzferrahhtoo]

Originally Posted by Futurist110

Anyway, any thoughts on this?

It sounds to me like the people presenting that argument are conflating different meanings of the word "need". This is a common pro-life ruse..... to take a word with multiple meanings in multiple contexts and conflate them all in order to imbue one context with the meaning of that word from another context.

And emotionally, if not at all intellectually, this can be a convincing ruse and one that potentially dupes many people into a pro-life position they otherwise might not hold.

In THIS case the move is to conflate "need" as in the process "needs" something to continue..... with the kind of consciousness derived "need" of an actual person needing actual things. So in essence it is imbuing a mindless process with the anthropomorphize "needs" we experience as thinking living human beings. They are trying to personify the process, or the fetus, long before there is any genuine intellectual reasons for doing so.

What is worth noting is that this argument does not apply to other contexts. Nor would they be foolish enough to try and port it to many other contexts. There are NUMEROUS scenarios one can build where one's actions causes, or continues, a "need" in another entity. But we in no way are morally obligated to meet those needs.

Think of a homeless starving family who decide to commit suicide in front of a train. They want to die because they can not meet their needs. I however save them. Now I have created (or at least maintained) a need in the world for food and housing and sustenance and so forth. Am I in any way morally obligated to service that need by housing and/or feeding them? Not a bit of it. I can stand up, walk off, and never see or think of them again.

Originally Posted by PedroMartinez

At a point between conception and delivery, it's a human.

At SOME point sure. The question anyone interested in the abortion debate has to answer is WHEN that point is and WHY. Unfortunately most Anti-Choice people I come across run away entirely from the "why" and seeming choose the "when" in an ENTIRELY arbitrary fashion.

And while I think ANY solution to the issue has to have at least SOME element of being arbitrary....... positions that come across as ENTIRELY arbitrary are of no interest to me at all. Especially when the position chosen appears to have been chosen for no other reason than it's simplicity (like conception or implantation).

Originally Posted by FirebirdCamaro1220

I vote that the mother has the right to abort if it is first or second trimester no matter what. The fetus can't live without her while in the womb or out.

Unfortunately that position is also somewhat simplistic and a moving target. Because as our medical technology progresses, the period of viability does too. And the fetus can, with the right applications of technology, survive quite well without a mother. And I do not think it will be long, in scientific terms, before the mother is not required at ANY stage in the process at all.

So my own pro-choice position does not reply on viability as a mediation point at all. The VAST majority of abortions by choice occur in or before the 12th week. Over 90% vast. And no one, least of all on this forum, has ever shown me a single argument as to why we should afford moral and ethical concern, let alone a right to life, to a fetus in that period.

Originally Posted by The Villages Guy

I think we focus our energies in the wrong places all the time. If we spent more time PREVENTING unwanted pregnancies, then there would be less interest in terminating human life after the fact.

Absolutely, and one thing that has always confounded my credulity is the coincidence in positions on that matter. That is to say, in my experience at least, the anti-choice position invariably correlates with positions AGAINST things that would reduce unwanted pregnancies. Like contraception, better and much EARLIER sex education of our children, medical science that improves contraceptive technologies, and more.

And the "reasoning" offered to be against those things is so fatuous and so stultifying in it's nonsense that it beggars belief.

Originally Posted by NxtGen

Your argument is invalid. Life is determined by science and a life is created at conception. You aren't "anti-science" are you?

Originally Posted by Retroit

It's much more simple to me: Is an unborn child a human being? If yes, you paid attention in biology class. If no, you are a science denier.

I would be wary of conflating the mis-use of science, and the mis-application of science, with being "anti science".

The problem here is that we have varying uses of the word "life" which are heavily contextual. I do not think anyone doubts that BIOLOGICALLY a "life" is created at conception. The Pro-choice position is mediated on realizing that the definition of "life" that is relevant to morality, ethics and rights is not the same one that is relevant in biology however.

So we can all be Pro Science, but we have to know where the boundaries and contexts are. And recognize when speakers are contriving to WILLFULLY conflate differing definitions and differing contexts in order to manufacture a point that is not actually there.

Originally Posted by cremebrulee

I'm personally against abortion/however, it isn't anyone else's decision...least of all the government's.

To partake of the devils avocado salad for a moment however, it very much could be the governments business if the fetus at the point is being aborted is deemed morally and ethically to be a human PERSON. Then the killing of it is every bit as much the governments business as me murdering you tomorrow would be.

Thankfully though the VAST majority of abortions occur (over 90% very consistently around the world in or before the 12th week of gestation) LONG before there is a SINGLE coherent argument for considering the fetus a human PERSON.

So while I agree with you that it should not be the "governments business".... I think it important to be clear WHY that is so.

[lkb0714]

Originally Posted by functionofx

No, there is a separate human being, who is killed by other human beings when an abortion is performed. The human killed, doesn't have much input to the process. At conception, a complete human has been created. As to body autonomy, this would permit you to abort those who are disabled at any time in life?

I don't think you know what body autonomy means. It means that an individual has the legal right to their own body and to make medical decisions in their own interest. How does that mean you would kill diabled people? If anything the support of the right to body autonomy would prevent that.

And a fetus is not a separate human being. If you took it out of the womans body, aka actually separated it, it would not continue to develop into a human being.

The condition of being in the womb, and maturing there, is a virtually 100% curable condition within about 9 months. Would you kill a human who was in need of support from another for 9 months?

What about the FACT that the fetus has the potential to kill, harm, or permanently effect the woman? Does that not matter at all?

And if you are in favor of removing a woman's body autonomy and forcing her to risk her health and life for another "person" are you also in favor of forcing people to donate organs to save another person's life?

All humans are conceived by an act of sex, or a sex proxy by other human beings. As such all deserve protection.

Not sure of the relevance of the above statement, but what is your plan for the hundreds of thousands of "people" who are created by IVF but never born?

[Nozzferrahhtoo]

Originally Posted by functionofx

At conception, a complete human has been created.

At conception you have a single cell with one block of DNA basically. It is no more a "complete Human" than a blue print on a table is a complete house. The very most that could be said of a post-conception zygote is that it is the complete instruction set required to build a human.

Even then though you use of the word "complete" is dubious and unclear. There is not only nothing "complete" about it at that stage.......... I struggle to think when we could accurately apply the word "complete" to the human life cycle at all. The human life cycle is cyclical with complex and iterative developments along much of it's path. I would not even look at a 12 year old and suggest it is "complete". Let alone a 12 WEEK old FETUS.

Clearly whatever parameters you use in the definition of the term "complete human" are not just slightly but MASSIVELY different to my own. It would be interesting therefore to establish what yours actually are.

Originally Posted by functionofx

As to body autonomy, this would permit you to abort those who are disabled at any time in life?

I think you will need to explain to me your reasoning there as I seriously have no idea how you got from "A" to "B" on that one at all. But it would appear to me that, at the very minimum, you are completely mis-using both the terms "abort" and "bodily autonomy" entirely in ways that they simply do not mean.

Originally Posted by functionofx

All humans are conceived by an act of sex, or a sex proxy by other human beings. As such all deserve protection.

The second sentence here appears, at best, to be a complete non-sequitur to the first. Once again how you get from "A" to "B" is entirely unclear. Could you explain further. Hows does a method of conception, or the circumstances of a conception, mediate what an entity "deserves" in any way?

[2mares]

Originally Posted by tipsywicket

I ask you to read about Kermit Gosnell and after you do, please tell me why you think that late term abortions are rare and of no consequence.

Because statistics from legitimate legal sources state the percentages.
The occasional criminal preforming abortions outside the law does not negate the true actual statistics within the law.

[2mares]

Originally Posted by tipsywicket

Whose consensus?

The medical community.

[RedZin]

Originally Posted by PedroMartinez

First trimester, no restrictions.

Second trimester, some restrictions.

Third trimester, lots of restrictions.

I find this generally agreeable.

I also do NOT think this is a states' rights issue.

Conservative states will heap on more restrictions and why should rights be curtailed based on how far across an imaginary line you happen to be living when you become unexpectedly pregnant?

It's a punishment to women who are already of limited means to travel and seek the medical care they require.