Indiana bans abortion past 20th week - Page 14

On April 28 2011 20:56 vetinari wrote:
If women have the sole right to choose, should she not have the sole burden of responsibility?

On April 28 2011 11:24 Imres wrote:
@ Wegandi

Do you know what Modernity stands for? Who Locke was... It's pretty dumb to see people that refuse that each individual is the only one owner of his body... And it's silly to argue that what is happening in one's body doesn't belong to this person.

Of course you can say that every philosophical stance taken since the 17th is terrible and that we should come back to the ancients...

On April 28 2011 21:00 Kanin wrote:
Whilst a foetus is still a parasite leeching off of another body, it should have zero rights. 1 week, or 52 weeks, it doesn't matter. Once it's popped out, then whatever. But even then, I'd go as far to say it isn't a human until it is is self-aware.

On April 28 2011 20:44 Autofire2 wrote:


You know, I was getting really annoyed by your dismissive and simplistic remarks on such a complex issue. But if you're just a nihilist (that's not the opposite of theist, so don't even throw that "oh you believe in God you dumbass" shit at me) then a lot of people here are going to disagree on basic premises and there's no point having a debate.

Does your life have value? If it does, it at one point it did not and you're lucky we let you live long enough to achieve it. If it doesn't, I'm sure you wouldn't mind if I put a gun to your head, since it has no intrinsic value.

Anyway: there is an easy test, which I would recommend to a lot of people in this thread: no matter where you stand, if you arrived at your position because it was completely intuitive to you, if you didn't put much thought into it, if the whole issue doesn't make you sick to your stomach with how much is at stake, then you probably haven't considered it enough. If, on top of all that, you are arrogant and condescending to everyone who disagrees with you, you're a jerkoff.


And speaking off jerkoffs: no, idiots, sperm is not the same as zygotes. you can keep that sperm in a handy little jar the rest of your life and it will never become a human being.

A zygote will, and please, drop the "potential human" BS. It would be pretty damn morbid to talk of a baby as being a "potential adult". If the normal course of non-tragic nature unfolds, then yes, it WILL be a human being, a UNIQUE human being (this is important) with certain genetic predispositions that were determined around conception. Talking of it as a POTENTIAL human life seems to suggest that it could potentially be a Rhino or something. It is the early stage of a human life.


Someone mentioned they weren't cognizant in the womb and therefore would not have given a shit if their mother aborted them. Fair enough, but how much are we aware off as babies? Certainly not much more than, say, cats, and you get into a whole lot more shit for killing the former than the latter. Why? They can both feel pain, have very basic reasoning skills, can sometimes even take in their surroundings and follow their instincts. Why is it so much worse to kill a baby? Because they will develop, if nature takes its course, into unique human beings with unique ways of interacting with the world.


The other side is also profound. To take away the liberty of a woman, perhaps for life (good luck going to college or working your way up the corporate ladder if you're a single mom) put her through the stress of 9 months of pregnancy (stupendous mental and physical stress), simply because she forgot to insist on birth control? Because she had unwise sex, a mistake many of us make but only a wretched few of us pay so very heavily for? Its unfair, and deeply so. Look inside yourself. HOW MUCH would you be willing to have taken away from you because of one mistake? Believe it or not, many women who get abortions DO feel terrible about it all the time and STILL think it was the right choice. They aren't mutually exclusive.


There is, in practical terms, no way to consistently make the right call on this. Both sides should simply agree to prevent the situation arising as often as possible. Unplanned pregnancies are what cause abortion, and both sides should put aside their goddamn slapfight and ensure better sex educations, more access to contraceptives, better foster care and adoption systems and maybe, just maybe, credit each other with some god damn humanity and not assume the other person is a misogynst/slut/babykiller/whatever. Most abortion arguments are terribly made, but both sides actually have some good underlying points.


WTL;DR? Abortion is a very complex issue that will never go away and instead of wasting our time (ironically, as I have done) discussing the moral implications let us simply agree unplanned pregnancies are bad, and work our ass off together to reduce those, and ensure there are options post-birth for a child the parents don't want. Making abortion illegal has never worked.

On April 28 2011 20:42 Ghostcom wrote:


Statements like these are so detrimental to any worthwhile debate >_>

In the end it all comes down to how you define life - is it when sperm meets egg? is it self-sustainability? is it awareness - and what degree of awareness?

And 20 weeks seems like an odd time, but if I'm to guess it's because the earliest a baby can survive being born is 15 weeks premature, thus at 20 weeks it still can't survive AND by giving time until week 20 you can actually test for Downs syndrome which is done @ week 16.

On April 28 2011 21:01 Maxwell3 wrote:


Then the mother should have closed her damn legs. The baby has no say in this, and that is wrong. Just watch one of you is going to get a dictionary term and prove it's not a baby somehow, lmfao.




wow... just wow.

On April 28 2011 21:03 -Archangel- wrote:

As a father I felt the need to say this because it is the truth. Even in europe the 3 month limit of being able to preform an abortion is probably too high, but 20 weeks that, I will say it again, is murder. I know how my little girl looked at 20 weeks and nobody can tell me she is not a person or alive. No law can tell me that. Laws are artificial constructions of men, this is nature that is above any human law.

On April 28 2011 20:44 Talin wrote:


I can make up a dozen absurd statements right now, that I can't prove to be right, but that nobody can conclusively prove to be wrong either. Should I then have the right to impose those statements upon others and demand that the entire society takes it into account because nobody can prove they are wrong?

The thing is, proving doesn't go "one way or the other", it only goes one way. The burden of proof is upon those who make positive statements. What happens so often though is somebody making a positive statement and either declaring it right because nobody can prove it wrong OR accepting that they can't prove it but then declaring it a valid opinion because "nobody can prove anything".

Don't you see how logically flawed that is?

A lot of people who are against abortions are not necessarily religious, just as there are many Catholics who disagree with the churches views on abortion and contraception.
Stop trying to demonize religion as the root cause of peoples views that you don't agree with.

On April 28 2011 20:58 scouting overlord wrote:


Note how on all of these imagined and highly biased 'well if i wuz in this position' provided, the woman always runs off with the child .

On April 28 2011 21:09 MagmaRam wrote:


So you're saying that I can't have an opinion if I can't prove it? If you say something ridiculous that I can't prove wrong, fine, I'll acknowledge it as a valid opinion. It's not a fact, and I don't have to take it into consideration, but I'm still going to consider it, however briefly. On the other hand, you're saying that unless it's a proven fact, you're not going to consider it true.

Fine. Prove this: Life is worth living.

On April 28 2011 21:10 scouting overlord wrote:


What are you even talking about at this point? You think this garbage is relevent to abortion, and the ridiculous superstition that surrounds the fetus?

On April 28 2011 21:10 vetinari wrote:


Thanks for responding to the question, mate.

...

Really. At this point, I'm pretty convinced that you are a troll.

On April 28 2011 21:07 scouting overlord wrote:


It wasn't sentient, it wasn't a person in any definition of the word. Your embarassing anecdote about your precious little angel is an artifical construction to women's rights .

On April 28 2011 21:20 eLiE wrote:


God, you're so condescending. Have some decency describing the man's pride and joy. Who gives a fuck about a definition, I can guarantee the word, "life", has a million difference meanings for every single person in the world. It's this sweeping trend of rationality that seems to be trying to destroy any sense of morality. The current world view is just making a bunch of ass holes who see only in black and white, disregarding the emotional impact of their actions.

Know what? Make every single woman see the baby they are killing. They want to be rational? Doctors are supposed to outline the costs and benefits of every single procedure they offer the patient. Know how you can show them the emotional impact of an abortion? Show them what they are removing from the body. If the baby is nothing, then the woman should have no problem going through with the abortion. Low blow? There is no low blow because you don't consider it a life anyway.

And if you want to get really technical on the rationality of abortion, go all black and white, you can argue that one of the only purposes, if not the sole purpose of being alive on this pointless, rational world, is to reproduce and keep the human race moving into the future. So in killing a potential life, you are acting against the meaning of life.

Know what? Make every single woman see the baby they are killing.

On April 28 2011 21:07 scouting overlord wrote:


It wasn't sentient, it wasn't a person in any definition of the word. Your embarassing anecdote about your precious little angel is an artifical construction to women's rights .

On April 28 2011 21:22 scouting overlord wrote:


I'm challenging opinions, I'm sorry if this makes your little brain hurt because the nasty man said you were wrong. It's got a good side effect of annoying sensitive people, which makes them say flat out monstrous things like:



Thanks for showing your true colors

On April 28 2011 21:24 Rabiator wrote:

There are always two sides to "freedom", because it only can go so far. We all live in a society which has its own cultures and what is considered to be "murder" in one society is considered "women's rights" in others. The society has to decide where it stands on the scale between those two extremes, but I think we have gone too far into the direction of "individual freedom" in the last 40-50 years, because individuality ultimately teaches us to become selfish and egoistical, which are the primary reasons why we have so many bad things happening to us which are man-made.

"Women's rights" is also an artificial construction ... depending upon the cutlure of the nation.