Abortion Discussion

obplayer

mezuzaj wrote: »

20 weeks aborted boy was far bigger than a finger.

And who said an unborn child is not a person.

My apologies, the foetus appears to be about the size of the palm of an adult hand, I found another image of the same foetus which makes things clearer. A bit more searching tells me that this is believed to be an image of a 22 week foetus. Abortions after 18 weeks are very rare and you are, I hope, well aware that such abortions are only carried out for serious medical reasons. You are also aware that you were implying this was an example of what most abortions are like; it is not. And a foetus is not an unborn child until such time as it can survive outside the womb.

swampgas

mezuzaj wrote: »

If you are going to defend abortion, then you need to defend the photos. That is abortion, its turning a child that exists, with a heart, head, arms and legs into Medical waste..

That's just emotional nonsense. Abortion does kill a tiny undeveloped human being (one that has no sentience) and that is no easy thing, but neither is pregnancy or bringing a child into the world.

There is no more need to defend the photos than there is any need to "defend" graphic pictures of heart transplants or eye surgery.

mezuzaj

swampgas wrote: »

Size describes a person though, and we do treat people differently based on development. We don't let three year olds drive or sign legal documents. Someone who miscarries at 6 weeks doesn't grieve the same way someone does when a 5 year old dies of meningitis.

You can be as absolute as you want and try to argue that all people are the same whether they are a minute post conception or 80 years old, but in reality we do differentiate.

I didn't say all people are the same. I am saying they are People.

I don't agree with utilitarianism, just because someone is not wanted in society or per a person (the old, young, sick.. )does not mean they don't have inherit value in themselves.. They value is not what we give them. Ronaldo's Mother would have had an abortion if she could, doctor did not give her the choice. Her choice would have been wrong.

mezuzaj

obplayer wrote: »

My apologies, the foetus appears to be about the size of the palm of an adult hand, I found another image of the same foetus which makes things clearer. A bit more searching tells me that this is believed to be an image of a 22 week foetus. Abortions after 18 weeks are very rare and you are, I hope, well aware that such abortions are only carried out for serious medical reasons. You are also aware that you were implying this was an example of what most abortions are like; it is not. And a foetus is not an unborn child until such time as it can survive outside the womb.

Downs Syndrome is not a medical reason for abortion. Most Downs babies are aborted after 16 weeks.

swampgas

mezuzaj wrote: »

I didn't say all people are the same. I am saying they are People.

I don't agree with utilitarianism, just because someone is not wanted in society or per a person (the old, young, sick.. )does not mean they don't have inherit value in themselves.. They value is not what we give them. Ronaldo's Mother would have had an abortion if she could, doctor did not give her the choice. Her choice would have been wrong.

The issue with abortion is that you are forced to weigh the value of an embryo or fetus (or unborn baby if you prefer) against the quality of a woman's life. You cannot simply say the woman must carry the baby and walk away, and refuse to consider the impact of an unwanted or unviable pregnancy on the woman involved.

If Ronaldo's mother had had the abortion, or if Ronaldo had died in childhood, we would neither know nor care. There are many billions of people who never made it past conception to implantation, no doubt some of them would have been wonderful people and maybe even half decent footballers, but that is no argument against abortion.

obplayer

mezuzaj wrote: »

Downs Syndrome is not a medical reason for abortion. Most Downs babies are aborted after 16 weeks.

What has that to do with a 22 week foetus abortion? As for Down's syndrome I will leave the question of abortion to the person who has to bring up the child.

Turtwig

Mod: Mezujai has been given a day off for linking to graphic content.

Seriously dude kids being bombed?

shruikan2553

Never understood the whole pictures thing. Ever see eye surgery? That would make me feel uncomfortable but it is seen as OK.

Turns out medical procedures aren't attractive.

Brian Shanahan

Turtwig wrote: »

Mod : Graphic images with blood and guts, are not allowed!


This isn't HBO.

True that, on HBO the graphic images would usually be connected to something of value.

shruikan2553 wrote: »

Never understood the whole pictures thing. Ever see eye surgery? That would make me feel uncomfortable but it is seen as OK.

Turns out medical procedures aren't attractive.

Totally unrelated to the whole abortion issue, but I've a strange reaction to injuries, no matter how bad I've hurt myself or how ugly the injury looks I've never been fazed by looking at them. But if somebody else so much as gets a paper cut I go weak at the knees.

Turtwig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cnaxnXZFKQ

lazygal

shruikan2553 wrote: »

Never understood the whole pictures thing. Ever see eye surgery? That would make me feel uncomfortable but it is seen as OK.

Turns out medical procedures aren't attractive.

Pictures of childbirth wouldn't be too attractive.

alaimacerc

mezuzaj wrote: »

I didn't say all people are the same. I am saying they are People.

Embryos and foetuses are not persons in any legal system I'm familiar with. (Though Ireland does come pretty close, by effectively making them "rights-bearing non-persons", as if that was ever going to be a clean solution to anything.)

I don't agree with utilitarianism, just because someone is not wanted in society or per a person (the old, young, sick.. )does not mean they don't have inherit value in themselves..

Before you disagree with utilitarianism, it would seem to be logically necessary to first understand it. Seeing no danger of that here. Being "wanted" has nothing whatsoever to do with it.

They value is not what we give them.

Let me guess. Their value is absolute, in a moral system that you just happen to have direct access to, and plan to impose on everyone else? Not to be trifled with by such errant notions as "relativism", or indeed "democracy".

Ronaldo's Mother would have had an abortion if she could, doctor did not give her the choice. Her choice would have been wrong.

Nothing wrong with the world that a bit of authoritarian paternalism won't prolong! Er, I mean, "cure".

alaimacerc

mezuzaj wrote: »

99% of abortions are not tiny embryos... they are children with beating hearts, head, hands, legs, unique DNA. Size does not define a person.

Do you have statistics to hand as to terminations by gestational date? Or indeed, a medical basis for a hard-and-fast distinction between "tiny" and "non-tiny" embryos? Also bear in mind that Irish abortions are typically going to be later, what with the whole "arranging for them to be exported" business. If you're going to say that makes them "worse", that's a classic victim-blaming double bind you're setting up there. Compare with France, say, where they're only legal up to 12 weeks, but are actually promptly available on that basis, and where a sizeable number are indeed EMA of embryos, without "beating hearts", whether or not satisfying your standard of "tininess" otherwise.

The "unique DNA" stuff's been dealt with many times, to no effective response by those repeatedly raising it. Are identical twins not each full persons? Whereas genetic mutations are?

Turtwig

Accounts closed alaimacerc you're not going to get any responses now.

alaimacerc

Turtwig wrote: »

Accounts closed alaimacerc you're not going to get any responses now.

Yeah, noticed that somewhat belatedly, my bad. Not that I was ever likely to get much of a meaningful response anyway!

PopePalpatine

mezuzaj wrote: »

I didn't say all people are the same. I am saying they are People.

I don't agree with utilitarianism, just because someone is not wanted in society or per a person (the old, young, sick.. )does not mean they don't have inherit value in themselves.. They value is not what we give them. Ronaldo's Mother would have had an abortion if she could, doctor did not give her the choice. Her choice would have been wrong.

I honestly don't get the "This aborted child could have been a great person" line. It requires a belief in predestination to accept. And, by a logical extension, if you think abortion is killing the next Nelson Mandela/Martin Luther King Jr/Ayrton Senna, then it's also killing the next Adolf Hitler/Mao Zedong/Josef Fritzl.

lazygal

Imagine if the aborted foetus would have turned out to be a doctor who specialised in abortion. Or pioneered easier access to abortion.

Sierra 117

What if the reason that the second coming of Christ hasn't happened yet is because he keeps being aborted?

aloyisious

Sierra 117 wrote: »

What if the reason that the second coming of Christ hasn't happened yet is because he keeps being aborted?

That would be indicative of a lack of foresight (and maybe something else) on the part of you know who.

alaimacerc

PopePalpatine wrote: »

I honestly don't get the "This aborted child could have been a great person" line. It requires a belief in predestination to accept.

And it would, logically, require putting the same "moral" force on the decision to have or not have sex at any given moment in time. Or to use contraception, clearly. Or anything biomechanical or chemical one might do to jiggle around sperm, for that matter. The Kwisatz Haderach breeding programme thwarted by an over-spicy burrito!

lazygal

Sierra 117 wrote: »

What if the reason that the second coming of Christ hasn't happened yet is because he keeps being aborted?

Surely Himself, being all powerful, would be able to work around that?

Cabaal

Sierra 117 wrote: »

What if the reason that the second coming of Christ hasn't happened yet is because he keeps being aborted?

And what if the reason another Hitler type person didn't get into power is because he keeps being aborted......

Brian Shanahan

PopePalpatine wrote: »

I honestly don't get the "This aborted child could have been a great person" line. It requires a belief in predestination to accept. And, by a logical extension, if you think abortion is killing the next Nelson Mandela/Martin Luther King Jr/Ayrton Senna, then it's also killing the next Adolf Hitler/Mao Zedong/Josef Fritzl.

That's the whole "you just aborted Bethoven" fiction. This essentially goes:

If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids
already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally
retarded, and she had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion?

With the poser quickly retorting if you say "yes", that you've just killed Bethoven. First of all there are some factual issues with the life of Bethoven's family as presented. From the same site I got the question:

As far as we can tell from researching the life of Beethoven, it's misleading to set up the question by saying he would have been his mother's ninth birth.
Only three of the children born to Maria Magdalena Beethoven survived infancy, with the composer Ludvig Von Beethoven being the oldest of the three.
Beethoven himself suffered from deafness in adulthood, but we found no evidence of deaf, blind, or mentally retarded siblings as children.
We found no substantiation of Beethoven's mother having had syphilis.
She is said to have died of what at that time was called consumption or tuberculosis.

Then there is the problem of "recommending for abortion". Even in states which allow abortions (unless I'm missing something) doctors aren't supposed to recommend termination unless, a) the foetus is unviable or b) the life or long term health of the mother is at serious risk by carrying the foetus to term.

Of course the rejoinder to this is to tell another story:

You are a doctor. A woman comes into your study and asks for reference to a good abortion clinic.
Do you chose either:
a) Give her a reference and arrange an appointment.
b) Persuade her to carry her child to term, by pointing out her husband is a relatively prosperous civil servant, she lives in a civilised country, her child will have good education and career prospects, he is unlikely to have any medical issues, and she is a roman catholic, so her beliefs tell her she will burn in hell if she goes through.

If their answer is b) then tell them, "Congratulations you've just caused the death of 6m. babies. That child was Hitler" (his mother at one stage considered an abortion of little Adolf, but her docter talked her out of it).

Now my story is as specious as the anti-abortionist's, but it does illustrate the uselessness of these kinds of stories to bolster your point, because for every great person that could have lived if an abortion hadn't taken place, a truly monstrous one could have been avoided if an abortion had taken place. Deciding a blanket rule on this kind of rationalising is useless.

alaimacerc

lazygal wrote: »

Surely Himself, being all powerful, would be able to work around that?

Presumably "human free will" implies that whilst the Godhead is omnipotent and omniscient, he/it is actually pretty damn passive aggressive about actually using these to any obvious beneficial purpose.

swampgas

PopePalpatine wrote: »

I honestly don't get the "This aborted child could have been a great person" line. It requires a belief in predestination to accept. And, by a logical extension, if you think abortion is killing the next Nelson Mandela/Martin Luther King Jr/Ayrton Senna, then it's also killing the next Adolf Hitler/Mao Zedong/Josef Fritzl.

It seems to me that many opponents of abortion have trouble distinguishing between a potential for something and the thing itself. Quite often the term "child" is used to refer to what is little more than an embryo. The phrase "unborn baby" makes sense after 24 weeks or so, but not so much to a pregnancy a few weeks old. So maybe the confusion about a potential (even if highly improbable) Beethoven being the same thing as a real Beethoven comes from the same way of thinking.

Cabaal

http://www.mediaite.com/online/satanists-would-like-their-hobby-lobby-exemption-from-anti-abortion-laws-please/

The Satanic Temple sees your Hobby Lobby ruling allowing corporations to opt out of providing certain forms of birth control because they contravene religious beliefs. And it wants in.

In a press release Monday, the New York-based organization said it planned to use the recent Supreme Court decision to argue that its members should be allowed to opt out of so-called informed-consent laws, which require doctors to read state-mandated material to women seeking an abortion — much of it, according to critics, pro-life propaganda.

Guess the Hobby Lobby crowd never thought it might be turned around on them

PopePalpatine

I'm surprised, I would have thought a humanist group would be the first to find such a loophole.

alaimacerc

I wouldn't count any chickens. Likely the SCOTUS will stamp it "Ignoramus", and not even bother to trot out some thin rationalisation as to why these "religious rights" aren't to be afforded the same protection as the "culturally normative" ones.

Cabaal

http://www.broadsheet.ie/2014/08/07/the-pro-life-choice/

Pregnant women in Ireland could be blocked from having an abortion even if they are at risk of suicide after conceiving as a result of rape or incest, under new guidelines issued to Irish doctors.
Experts warned that the Guidance Document for Health Professionals, which has yet to be made public but has been obtained by the Guardian, will give power to doctors, obstetricians and psychiatrists to prevent vulnerable women from terminating their pregnancies.

….The 108-page guide does not include provisions for an independent committee to make decisions on treating those with “suicidal intent”, which was a key demand among campaigners for reform…initial referral for women including those with “suicidal intent” begins with her own GP.

If the GP agrees, he or she will refer the woman to three doctors – including one obstetrician and two psychiatrists – who will decide whether there is a real risk to the woman’s life through suicide. If her request is rejected, she will go through an appeal system involving another two psychiatrists and another obstetrician….

Guardian story
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/07/pregnant-women-ireland-abortion-ban-suicide



and Ireland continuous to export its problems!
What a pathetic country we are, :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

aloyisious

My Conscience say's that it has greater standing than your Conscience, so get thee hence woman, advice courtesy of D2 Oireachtas and D2 medical fellowships. The Irish answer to an Irish problem; guidelines. They are exactly what the eye of the beholder (Medic and Lawmaker) sees them to be, not what something written into statute books unavoidably says and means. Rally round, boys, we'll put these women in their place.