Samantha Brick & Aborting Down's Syndrome babies...

Scioch

Zulu wrote: »

That was my point. It was deliberately as farcical as Kooli's assertion.

Your point was ridiculous, you just made up something that had no relevance to the pro choice side at all to rubbish something that was relevant.

Oh right, I see. Your propaganda is right. :rolleyes:

Difference is my "propaganda" (although how saying women are human beings is propaganda is beyond me) is based on human rights and law. Your is based on you not agreeing.

Indeed. I made a point of making a ridiculous statement to highlight a blatantly extremist attitude, you seem to be intent on supporting a blatantly extremist attitude.

But hey, sure don't worry about it guy, all "pro-lifers" are the extremists who "see women as murderers". :rolleyes:

Seeing as that post you were talking about was in direct response to a person who said it was murder and told someone who had an abortion and didnt regret it to "keep telling yourself that", I think its pretty clear your talking absolute shíte.

Kooli

Zulu wrote: »

Yes really.
Because you can't imagine it doesn't make it so.

Yeah, sure. Don't make me laugh. To assert that "pro-lifers don't want women to come out of an abortion unharmed" is antagonistic.
To assert that "they want them to be crippled by guilt and haunted by pain" is antagonistic.

You're being deliberately antagonistic, and disingenuous to boot.

I very much doubt that. If you are looking for a genuine conversation, I'd suggest being less antagonistic, disingenuous and offensive.

I think these conversations are much better if each side tries to understand the other's point of view.

I would really like to understand the point of view.

I don't know how else to ask. If you don't want to answer, that's fine (although I don't really understand that attitude).

I do genuinely believe that if I was anti-abortion, I would not want women who abort to feel no guilt or harm as a result. You are telling me that is utter, utter bull. And yet you won't explain why.

Zulu

LordSmeg wrote: »

I think its pretty clear your talking absolute shíte.

I think it's pretty clear your talking shite. My objection is to lie levelled at everyone whos pro-life.

Yours is to deliberate hyperbole, used to prove a point. :rolleyes:

davet82

SocSocPol wrote: »

In my opinion it becomes human when it reaches the stage where if it were removed from the womb it would capable of surviving without any long term physical or intellectual damage being caused by its birth. Im not a Doctor but I suspect thats probably around the 26-30 weeks, though like I say Im not a doctor so I am to some degree guessing.

(UK) The limit is set down in the 1967 Abortion Act - 24 weeks.

There are some exceptions that have been documented about babies that survived at 22 and one at 21 weeks. Usually after 28 weeks is when a baby has a pretty good chance of survivial just 4 weeks after it is legally right to terminate the child/fetus/the life.

Why not make it 24 weeks and 1 day, what difference will the day make? Has it become more 'human' in 24 hours, thats what i dont get about the whole arguement.

Ms.M

Kooli wrote: »

Really? I can't imagine someone on the pro-life side being glad that a woman who has had an abortion feels no guilt.

That's not a dig at pro-life people. It just feels to me like the response that would naturally go along with the belief that abortion is murder.

Like say I personally wouldn't be happy if I heard a murderer felt no guilt or remorse. And I wouldn't like to foster a culture where murderers don't feel guilt or remorse, or a culture where murder is seen as OK and the choice of the murderer.

So, I'm just applying that same feeling to people who are pro-life.

I'm not trying to be antagonistic, so if I'm wrong, please do explain where I am mistaken.
I genuinely would like to understand how a pro-life (or anti-abortion) stance can fit with a notion of wanting a woman to come out the other side unharmed and guilt-free

I have pro-lifers and people who've had an abortion in my group of friends. This isn't a problem for either. People can make allowances when it comes to things that aren't universally accepted as right or wrong. (They should anyway, you can tell from some of the posts here that not all pro-lifers or pro-choicers do) You could compare it to a pacifist hating what their army does but not wanting soldiers to be guilt-ridden and not considering them to be murderers. Very loose comparison mind! I am not comparing war to abortion! I'm not dipping my footsies into the pro-life/ pro-choice debate... I'm just saying my pro-life buddies certainly do not want my two buddies who've had an abortion to suffer in anyway. Likewise, those two buddies are not offended by the pro-lifers beliefs and don't antagonise them. Understandably, we don't have long discussions about it! Hope that helps!

Zulu

Kooli wrote: »

You are telling me that is utter, utter bull.

No I'm telling you your assertion is utter bull.
As a pro life person, I wish no harm to any woman who's had an abortion. I also have no wish for women who've had abortions to be crippled by guilt and haunted by pain.

Ergo, your point is a lie. But you knew that...

Kooli

Zulu wrote: »

No I'm telling you your assertion is utter bull.
As a pro life person, I wish no harm to any woman who's had an abortion. I also have no wish for women who've had abortions to be crippled by guilt and haunted by pain.

Ergo, your point is a lie. But you knew that...

OK I appreciate you answering, but I'm more interested in the thinking behind it.

I'm comparing how I think about murderer's. I would want them to feel guilt. I don't want them to 'get off scot free'.

Also Ms.M I see the comparison with war/soldiers, but in your example it's about convincing yourself that it wasn't murder.
Whereas I thought pro-life people believed genuinely that what's happening is murder, which is why I thought it made sense that they would not want a 'murderer' to come out of the process unscathed.

But if I'm wrong about that (for some pro-life people), I'm very glad that I'm wrong.

Scioch

Zulu wrote: »

I think it's pretty clear your talking shite. My objection is to lie levelled at everyone whos pro-life.


Yours is to deliberate hyperbole, used to prove a point. :rolleyes:

Propaganda, extremist attitude and now hyperbole. Who needs to defend or discuss anything when you can dismiss it all right ? Handy that.

OldNotWIse

LordSmeg wrote: »

Thats ridiculous and makes no sense no matter how you look at it. Pro choice side sees women as human beings who should have the choice to decide things in relation to their life and their body.

The pro life side sees women who have abortions as murderers and do all in their power to instil the guilt and pain involved with that in those who have abortions.

We can both make up offensive bullshít but there is only side side actively doing that.

The pro life side sees women who have abortions as murderers and do all in their power to instil the guilt and pain involved with that in those who have abortions.

try, " the pro life side sees the unborn child as a human being, deserving of the right to not have its life terminated. They use their constitutional right to vote in accordance with their beliefs, and when their views are challenged, they stand up for them"

It's always nice to be able to label those who dont agree with us as freaks, fanatics, evil etc so that you can dismiss their views as ridiculous, but the reality is, most of us are just average, normal people plodding along through life and happen to have different ideas of what is right and wrong.

There is nothing to be gained from making the woman feel guilty..its not going to bring the baby back, and its not going to prevent another abortion so anyone who goes out of their way to do this is clearly not "pro life" but pro punishment.

Zulu

Kooli wrote: »

OK I appreciate you answering, but I'm more interested in the thinking behind it.

Perhaps some pro life people are more concerned about protecting the child, than vilifying the mother? Personally I've no interest in vilifying the mother.

Perhaps the mother was pro abortion and genuinely believed there was no child there in the first place. Perhaps the mother was at terminal risk is the pregnancy continued. Perhaps Kooli, if you granted pro life supporters a little more credit it'd be easier for you to understand the thinking behind it.

Scioch

OldNotWIse wrote: »

The pro life side sees women who have abortions as murderers and do all in their power to instil the guilt and pain involved with that in those who have abortions.

try, " the pro life side sees the unborn child as a human being, deserving of the right to not have its life terminated. They use their constitutional right to vote in accordance with their beliefs, and when their views are challenged, they stand up for them"

It's always nice to be able to label those who dont agree with us as freaks, fanatics, evil etc so that you can dismiss their views as ridiculous, but the reality is, most of us are just average, normal people plodding along through life and happen to have different ideas of what is right and wrong.

There is nothing to be gained from making the woman feel guilty..its not going to bring the baby back, and its not going to prevent another abortion so anyone who goes out of their way to do this is clearly not "pro life" but pro punishment.

I'm open to discussing it but as we seen with darced back there, the "its murder" line is trotted out time and time again to infer people who have abortions are morally corrupt and then use the other nugget that people are haunted by it to enforce that view.

I'm dismissing that argument as ridiculous, you want to argue whether or not it should be legal fine but when you based it on the people who avail of the right and level accusations of murder then the argument turns to shít.

Zulu

LordSmeg wrote: »

Propaganda, extremist attitude and now hyperbole...

If you're going to be a smart arse at least get it right. My comment was the hyperbole, hers the lie. :rolleyes:

OldNotWIse

davet82 wrote: »

There are some exceptions that have been documented about babies that survived at 22 and one at 21 weeks. Usually after 28 weeks is when a baby has a pretty good chance of survivial just 4 weeks after it is legally right to terminate the child/fetus/the life.

Why not make it 24 weeks and 1 day, what difference will the day make? Has it become more 'human' in 24 hours, thats what i dont get about the whole arguement.

That's the grey area that is so difficult to navigate. When is the "magic moment" when it stops being ok? I always have difficulty with this. For example, I'm not one of the wackos who is against MAP (having utilised after an episode of shameful stupidity :eek:) but I am pro life. Some pro life people would consider me to be just as culpable as a woman who has a termination at 6 weeks...six months - where's the line??

Also, when you mentioned the age of premature babies surviving (and its great that now younger and younger ones can survive) haven't there been a few cases of induced labour abortions where the baby was actually born alive?? I dont have a citation (and dont really want to goole it at work) but I remember hearing something about this

Ms.M

Kooli wrote: »

Also Ms.M I see the comparison with war/soldiers, but in your example it's about convincing yourself that it wasn't murder.
Whereas I thought pro-life people believed genuinely that what's happening is murder, which is why I thought it made sense that they would not want a 'murderer' to come out of the process unscathed.
.

I don't know if I get you. I think the pro-life belief is that abortion is "murder" but likewise a pacifist will believe that killing a soldier is "murder" but I would guess that most pacifists and most pro-lifers see culture and society as responsible rather than the individual women or soldiers. (I'm just comparing them on the basis that they're "cultural" beliefs) The "abortion is murder" campaigns some pro-lifers engage in is meant to prevent women having abortions rather than making them feel guilty for having them.

Zulu

LordSmeg wrote: »

I'm open to discussing it but as we seen with darced back there, the "its murder" line is trotted out time and time again...

Your purchase on the "high moral ground" is laughable when you support such comments as:
"pro-lifers don't want women to come out of an abortion unharmed"
& pro lifers want women "to be crippled by guilt and haunted by pain"

Scioch

Ms.M wrote: »

I don't know if I get you. I think the pro-life belief is that abortion is "murder" but likewise a pacifist will believe that killing a soldier is "murder" but I would guess that most pacifists and most pro-lifers see culture and society as responsible rather than the individual women or soldiers. (I'm just comparing them on the basis that they're "cultural" beliefs) The "abortion is murder" campaigns some pro-lifers engage in is meant to prevent women having abortions rather than making them feel guilty for having them.

Prevent them having abortions by demonising the practise and those involved in it. An extension of that is the inference that people should feel guilty and be tormented by it as they would be given how wrong it is and an extension of that is that if you have done it then you should feel guilty and tormented by it.

If you claim something is worthy of contempt then you must hold those who do it in contempt. You cant pick a campaign based on demonising something and think or expect the opinions expressed that way not to apply to people who have done it.

Scioch

Zulu wrote: »

Your purchase on the "high moral ground" is laughable when you support such comments as:
"pro-lifers don't want women to come out of an abortion unharmed"
& pro lifers want women "to be crippled by guilt and haunted by pain"

I said I was open to discussing it, if you dont want to discuss it crawl back under your bridge.

harr

I posted about this before on boards but will again,we have a child with DS who is one of the happiest little kids you will find granted a little more work than our other kids with more doctor visits and what not but he brings a smile to whoever he meets.
We know we have a long road ahead of us but we will get there,with the help they get these days they can live a life very close to a normal child's expatiation's and he is going to main stream school come September so we have hope that his life will be a fairly normal one.

Before we had any kids we did discuss the possibility of having kids with DS as we know a few couples who had older kids with DS,so as it turns out none of the scans showed any problems and it was a big shock when he was born.
So i dont blame parents for thinking about abortion if they find out in a early scan,thank god we did not have to make that decision in the end and i don't honestly know what we would have done.
DS is not the end of the world and they are more like other kids than unlike,so don't judge any one who has or is thinking about a termination as its probably going to be one of the toughest decisions a couple will ever make.

Sorry for long post.

OldNotWIse

Kooli wrote: »

OK I appreciate you answering, but I'm more interested in the thinking behind it.

I'm comparing how I think about murderer's. I would want them to feel guilt. I don't want them to 'get off scot free'.

Also Ms.M I see the comparison with war/soldiers, but in your example it's about convincing yourself that it wasn't murder.
Whereas I thought pro-life people believed genuinely that what's happening is murder, which is why I thought it made sense that they would not want a 'murderer' to come out of the process unscathed.

But if I'm wrong about that (for some pro-life people), I'm very glad that I'm wrong.

I think the definition of pro-life is that you want the unborn child to have the right to be kept alive and not have its life terminated before birth. It makes no sense to want a woman who has already ended her babies life to feel guilt - what will that achieve? It wont bring the baby back, it wont prevent another abortion. A murderer, however, will (or at least should lol) be locked up so that he/she is kept away from society, can possibly re-habilited, prevent re-offending etc - none of these issues are relevant to a woman who has had an abortion. She is not "a danger to society", she is not a sociopath with a tendancy to kill others and a risk of doing it again, she does not need to be rehabilitated in order to be integrated back into society. For these reasons, although I believe that the act of destroying the unborn is murder, I do not agree that women who have abortions should be called murderers - it achieves nothing and is simply a way of hurting someone who has done something you dont like.

Kooli

OldNotWIse wrote: »

I think the definition of pro-life is that you want the unborn child to have the right to be kept alive and not have its life terminated before birth. It makes no sense to want a woman who has already ended her babies life to feel guilt - what will that achieve? It wont bring the baby back, it wont prevent another abortion. A murderer, however, will (or at least should lol) be locked up so that he/she is kept away from society, can possibly re-habilited, prevent re-offending etc - none of these issues are relevant to a woman who has had an abortion. She is not "a danger to society", she is not a sociopath with a tendancy to kill others and a risk of doing it again, she does not need to be rehabilitated in order to be integrated back into society. For these reasons, although I believe that the act of destroying the unborn is murder, I do not agree that women who have abortions should be called murderers - it achieves nothing and is simply a way of hurting someone who has done something you dont like.

I appreciate that response, thanks.

Scioch

OldNotWIse wrote: »

I think the definition of pro-life is that you want the unborn child to have the right to be kept alive and not have its life terminated before birth. It makes no sense to want a woman who has already ended her babies life to feel guilt - what will that achieve? it wont prevent another abortion

What the "abortion is murder" campaign wants to achieve, the spreading of the view that its morally reprehensible to do it to stop people doing it.

You cannot class it as murder without calling everyone who does it a murderer. And you cannot do that without inferring that they should feel guilt for their actions because they were wrong.

You cannot separate it.

OldNotWIse

SocSocPol wrote: »

No, it is a potential human being, which is miscarrages are not recorded in the registry of Deaths.
In any event Termination is a matter for the potential mother and is a civil right.

not here

Scioch

OldNotWIse wrote: »

[/B]

not here

Pretty sure it is, the procedure isnt legal here but the right to it is. Which is why you cannot be stopped going abroad to do it.

OldNotWIse

LordSmeg wrote: »

I'm open to discussing it but as we seen with darced back there, the "its murder" line is trotted out time and time again to infer people who have abortions are morally corrupt and then use the other nugget that people are haunted by it to enforce that view.

I'm dismissing that argument as ridiculous, you want to argue whether or not it should be legal fine but when you based it on the people who avail of the right and level accusations of murder then the argument turns to shít.

where?

Kooli

LordSmeg wrote: »

What the "abortion is murder" campaign wants to achieve, the spreading of the view that its morally reprehensible to do it to stop people doing it.

You cannot class it as murder without calling everyone who does it a murderer. And you cannot do that without inferring that they should feel guilt for their actions because they were wrong.

You cannot separate it.

I totally agree with you in theory, and that's exactlythe way I see it. But I understand as humans we are all capable of holding contradictory views in our minds or finding ways to rationalise opposing viewpoints. That's what cognitive dissonance is all about!

(And that's not just pro-lifers - you should see the cognitive gymnastics I have to go through to rationalise the fact that I eat meat)

Scioch

OldNotWIse wrote: »

where?

I'm not talking about you personally I'm using you in the general sense. Its a bad habit of mine. As is spelling. Meant a general "when you base it" not "when you based it".

Kooli

Kooli wrote: »

I totally agree with you in theory, and that's exactlythe way I see it. But I understand as humans we are all capable of holding contradictory views in our minds or finding ways to rationalise opposing viewpoints. That's what cognitive dissonance is all about!

(And that's not just pro-lifers - you should see the cognitive gymnastics I have to go through to rationalise the fact that I eat meat)

And just to add to my own point. While I say I understand what the pro-life people are saying, I think they really, really need to try and understand the opposing point of view. That when they call abortion murder, and say that there is always a better option, they are accusing women who have terminated a pregnancy of murder. They really need to take responsibility for that and the impact it may have on the women in these circumstances. Just adding on 'but I don't blame the woman' doesn't make the accusation go away.

Ray Palmer

I find some of the statements about ds people as convenient mis truth. They are people like most others. Some are nice some are not.
I remember one kid near me growing up and he was violent with a temper. He had ds. His behaviour was excused due to that.
He was not a nice person the same was some kids are just not nice.
Having ds doesn't make people any better in the personality department. It is not uncommon for them to be violent. Being sexually active can also pose problems.

Now I am older he still lives with his parents who are old and frail. He is drugged up so as not to be violent.

Friends with ds brothers and sisters paid heavy prices too. One was pretty much pushed out of their home. Sent to boarding school so the monther could take care of the ds child. Another lived in pretty much poverty due to costs of her brother.
They love their family but fully aware that they paid a big price and their parents still are.

Given the reality a tuff decision but yes abortion might be fairer to all concerned.

Zulu

LordSmeg wrote: »

...crawl back under your bridge.

Insults do little to bolster your argument.

Zulu

Kooli wrote: »

They really need to take responsibility...

I'd suggest that people who support abortion really need to stop trying to silence those who oppose it.

Silencing dissent is never a good thing, and doesn't make for a progressive society.