Abortion - An age old issue

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Parents have as much of an obligation to their current actual children and other people in their lives, as well as society itself, not to bring children into the world who will inevitably consume disproportionate resources in return for a vastly diminished quality of life.

While there is, of course, an obligation to give the best care to existing children and a number of reasons why infants may be born disabled, deliberately bringing disabled children into the world is perverse and should be regarded as an evil.
No, not necessarily. I don't feel that abortion of disabled children is immoral, but if a parent has the resources and means and will to raise a child in spite of disability I'm not sure if doing so is "evil". A person may bring such a child to term out of a conviction that "they still love them just as much" or belief that abortion is wrong, and from a certain point of view these reasons are valid.

People with disabilities up to a certain threshold can have a reasonably good quality of life and high satisfaction even if their range of abilities isn't full. Handicapped people can also positively contribute to society and their environment (hawking etc etc you get the point) Disability is still negative of course but I'd say choosing not to abort in those situations isn't more "wrong" than say, having children when you're poor.

Hereditary disabilities are a specific exception because the act of having children perpetuates the presence of those defective genes that one carries and prevents their eradication, and doing so is setting the stage for dozens of those generations descended from you to suffer.
 
But the brain doesn't have to be what is changing behaviour. Hormonal changes can do the same thing. If you deny hormonal changes as fulfilling that requirement then you need to deny that plants and fungi and microorganisms are life.

That is the case. The fetus adapts to the womb not the external environment. Some adaptations may have later effects associated with the external environment but the fetus likewise doesn't just do what is in the interest of the mother but what is in its own interest so it is responding to the environment as opposed to simply being an extension of the mother.

Who said this? I completely think that women who get illegal abortions should be punished and so do many other pro lifers.

I think that the main reason for this is that prolifers don't use consequentialist ethical arguments against abortion. Even consequentialist arguments might be successful because we would simply be unable to practically eliminate these miscarriages but fundamentally abortion is murder and murder can be wrong even if letting die is legal. It is the difference between not personally shooting someone vs spending days of your life to find and warn someone about an accident that might happen to them. It is good to do the latter but it is not a duty whereas the former is a duty and as a result someone can be held accountable for failing to live up to it. That being said I also think that the abortion debate is an excuse to talk about things that otherwise would be completely suppressed in politics such as gender roles

Whether or not the fetus is "alive" I think is insignificant to the greater question for either side. Likewise, while I think that gender roles and their discussion are a noble and worthwhile pursuit, I doubt I would call them suppressed. They have also just become insignificant to a greater question in their own case. These questions are, respectively, "is the fetus a human being" and "even if society would benefit from gender roles, shouldn't the person still be free to not care about that?" The answers to these questions are "no" and "yes" respectively. The fetus is not human for reasons many have stated earlier, and while I too mourn the loss of its potential like many pro-lifers, the "ability to one day become a human being" is not the same thing as "human being." Whether or not it is alive is a weird place to draw a line on abortion because that doesn't matter at all, even a little. Lots of shit being alive doesn't matter. Cows are technically alive and we slaughter them by the millions. They haven't complained much, and neither have any fetuses.
Gender roles are likewise pretty irrelevant. Even if traditionally a woman's role has been motherhood, it certainly is not now in most of western society. Where I come from, this actually is still the case, but even in such backwater parts of the west that is changing, fast. And no amount of laws, conservative discourse, or harsh "you are a murderer because I say so" penalties are going to make women bend over and accept that. They are free and will continue to decide these things for themselves, as you will and would want to. As @Pikimon said in another case: it would be like closing the barn doors after the horses ran out. Even if the left and progressivism were entirely wrong about women getting to make their own choices on this matter (and I get you on a certain level, the left is wrong about most things), they feel they are entitled to it now. Entitlement is all that is propping up anyone's right to anything anywhere, so it is strong a force as freedom of speech or freedom of religion. Just not worthy of attacking or defending in most cases, including abortion.

As far as the "you are a murderer because I say so" penalties I mentioned above, that is what any law punishing women for abortions, especially retroactively, will amount to. You can say that pro-lifers are looking at a larger picture than pro-choicers and taking more of the circumstances into account, but at the end of the day even if that were true, you are punishing someone for murder over something that's most worthwhile characteristic you can think of is that it is essentially comparable to that a of plant. Kind of. A lot of your argument actually does seem to revolve around the idea of the fetus' potential, men's rights, and the "necessity" of our species to propagate itself (which I find particularly strange since we as individuals are going to die in fifty years, give or take, and who cares if any human beings live after us. We'll be dead. But that's another story.) These arguments and topics are important and interesting, but the willingness of the woman to take on this role is the most paramount aspect of this discussion, period, and forcing her to live through the obscene and cruel laws you (and others) have proposed is monstrous. I can in no way prove, but I speculate, that if you were a woman, you would be very unlikely to advocate potentially forcing yourself into a position in which you underwent such a physically intensive, potentially lethal thing (even if there aren't complications) at the behest of your spouse, against your will, and then forced into motherhood also against your will, potentially ruining your life and chance at happiness or fulfillment, forever. "Because you consented to some sex once." Holy shit. The fetus won't complain (no ability to do so or to process its fate anyway), we already spent at least sixteen years raising up the "mother", educating her, feeding her, ect. so potentially wrecking her life is a huge waste of social resources, and for attempting to escape this and the extremely constraining social confines of motherhood, we are going to slap "attempted murderer" on her just to make sure no one else gets the same idea? You know, I hate that feminist "patriarchy" bullshit, but that sounds a lot like what you are advocating.
 
Whether or not the fetus is "alive" I think is insignificant to the greater question for either side. Likewise, while I think that gender roles and their discussion are a noble and worthwhile pursuit, I doubt I would call them suppressed. They have also just become insignificant to a greater question in their own case. These questions are, respectively, "is the fetus a human being" and "even if society would benefit from gender roles, shouldn't the person still be free to not care about that?" The answers to these questions are "no" and "yes" respectively. The fetus is not human for reasons many have stated earlier, and while I too mourn the loss of its potential like many pro-lifers, the "ability to one day become a human being" is not the same thing as "human being." Whether or not it is alive is a weird place to draw a line on abortion because that doesn't matter at all, even a little. Lots of shit being alive doesn't matter. Cows are technically alive and we slaughter them by the millions. They haven't complained much, and neither have any fetuses.
I am not pro life because I believe that gender roles are socially beneficial. I believe that they are individually beneficial and it is people's personal decision to choose whether to follow them or not.

I do however believe that freedom of speech is important hence why I support gamergate and the pro life movement. In non North American countries I do not know what I would say about the movements because I don't believe that political suppression is as bad elsewhere

I would still say that the fetus is a form of human but that itself does not make it wrong to kill it as it is unbounded by the social contract but I think that if human rights exist then the fetus should have them at least to some degree. But my stance on this makes the humanity of the fetus irrelevant
You can say that pro-lifers are looking at a larger picture than pro-choicers and taking more of the circumstances into account
I did not mean to say anything like that. Rather what I meant to say is that they believe or at least claim that the issue of abortion is more linked to other issues partially just in order to get people to listen to them when they otherwise would be silenced. I think that they are shortsighted to the exact same degree.
you are punishing someone for murder over something that's most worthwhile characteristic you can think of is that it is essentially comparable to that a of plant. Kind of.
My position is that the worthwhile characteristic is that another party is involved. If we were ants I would totally be OK with aborting males because they only have a mother
"necessity" of our species to propagate itself (which I find particularly strange since we as individuals are going to die in fifty years, give or take, and who cares if any human beings live after us. We'll be dead. But that's another story.)
None of it is about the necessity of the species propagating but rather individualistic evolutionary decisions
I can in no way prove, but I speculate, that if you were a woman, you would be very unlikely to advocate potentially forcing yourself into a position in which you underwent such a physically intensive, potentially lethal thing (even if there aren't complications) at the behest of your spouse, against your will, and then forced into motherhood also against your will, potentially ruining your life and chance at happiness or fulfillment, forever. "Because you consented to some sex once."
If I were a woman under this system I would just only have sex with people that I know I am on the same page on about these things. There would need to be laws in place to criminalize deceptive behaviour and I would probably just make every man I had sex with sign a contract waiving his right to control the outcome if I didn't want to become pregnant (as would be a completely legal thing in this system).
we already spent at least sixteen years raising up the "mother", educating her, feeding her, ect. so potentially wrecking her life is a huge waste of social resources, and for attempting to escape this and the extremely constraining social confines of motherhood, we are going to slap "attempted murderer" on her just to make sure no one else gets the same idea? You know, I hate that feminist "patriarchy" bullshit, but that sounds a lot like what you are advocating.
Was I not clear that I don't care about the good of society at all or even believe that it exists.
 
If I were a woman under this system I would just only have sex with people that I know I am on the same page on about these things.

Thing is, sex doesn't always work that way. People get drunk and screw. Sometimes the physical overrides the intellectual. And no man would have sex with a woman if he had to sign a contract, that's creepy.
 
Thing is, sex doesn't always work that way. People get drunk and screw. Sometimes the physical overrides the intellectual.
I think that that is more a problem associated with getting drunk than a problem associated with abortion. But in general I think that people who do that would be pro choice leftists anyways
And no man would have sex with a woman if he had to sign a contract, that's creepy.
The contract would just be a smartphone app that both parties would need to activate and then tap their phones together in orderto indicate that an abortion will take place. It isn't that complicated
 
There's a big difference between a natural death that's unnoticeable and unavoidable, and purposeful killing.
People die from "old age" and random vague causes all the time and we still try to cure that. If half of all infants were dying for some unknown reason every government on earth would be contributing money trying to figure out why. Fetuses aren't people so no one cares.
 
I really don't think men should be allowed to have opinions on abortion, at the very least I don't see why they're allowed to vote on it at all. Why should they? Serious question
Males are aborted too. More generally, should you not be allowed to speak out against an injustice because you're not part of the group performing it?
 
Shallow Thoughts Warning.
I'm not against abortion, per se, more against who should have it done.

It seems like those who actually do get abortions are the people who, more often than not, should be reproducing. Those that should be aborting their crotch fruit seem to have droves of children.

In short, I'm in favor of eugenics and Hitler did nothing wrong.

Edited for grammar.
 
Due to the discussion in this thread I changed my mind on abortion and now think that the only thing that is necessary is for women to be able to make legally binding contracts affecting their right to have an abortion (requiring or prohibiting it in certain circumstances) and as a result it would have the same effect of allowing men who are wanting to have children getting to keep their children and preventing spite abortions but at the same time it would avoid the casual sex issue (but I haven't changed my mind on what constitutes an abortion that I approve of)
 
Abortion is one of the hardest topics for me to deal with. On one hand, I consider myself pro-life because I believe that all fetuses deserve to be born and have value as human beings. But on the other hand, I definitely understand that there are a lot of reasons why a woman wouldn't want to give birth and why having an abortion seems like the only option available. I would never and have never condemned or judged a woman who's had an abortion. I don't know her life.

But I really hate the way this debate has degenerated on both sides. It's all about name-calling and shit-flinging and nothing ever gets done. Of course, that's probably because only the loudest and most obstinate people make themselves heard. It just feels like people aren't willing to compromise or try to understand things from the other side's perspective. Pro-life people aren't willing to understand why pro-choice people believe that a woman's choice is more important that a fetus, and pro-choice people aren't willing to understand why pro-life people believe that the right of a fetus to be born is more important than a woman's choice. So they just name call each other things like "baby killers" and "woman haters" and nothing ever changes. It just makes me angry.
 
Abortion is one of the hardest topics for me to deal with. On one hand, I consider myself pro-life because I believe that all fetuses deserve to be born and have value as human beings. But on the other hand, I definitely understand that there are a lot of reasons why a woman wouldn't want to give birth and why having an abortion seems like the only option available. I would never and have never condemned or judged a woman who's had an abortion. I don't know her life.

But I really hate the way this debate has degenerated on both sides. It's all about name-calling and shit-flinging and nothing ever gets done. Of course, that's probably because only the loudest and most obstinate people make themselves heard. It just feels like people aren't willing to compromise or try to understand things from the other side's perspective. Pro-life people aren't willing to understand why pro-choice people believe that a woman's choice is more important that a fetus, and pro-choice people aren't willing to understand why pro-life people believe that the right of a fetus to be born is more important than a woman's choice. So they just name call each other things like "baby killers" and "woman haters" and nothing ever changes. It just makes me angry.

Agreed, my opinion is simple:
Abortions for medical purposes are good.
Abortions because you don't want a kid. Bad. Adoptions are a thing.
 
Legally, I believe a woman should have the right to terminate her pregnancy simply because not having it would mean that she doesn't have full control over her body (although maybe have a reasonable "cutoff" point in the pregnancy about when she is allowed to terminate)

Morally, I find any instance of abortion despicable with the exception when:
1) The fetus is so fucked up that it could be reasonably argued that its quality of life will be complete shit
2) The pregnant woman had no choice in getting pregnant (i.e. rape)
For anything else, she should have been more careful and it would be better if she actually took responsibility for her actions. She should still have, in my opinion, the right to terminate her pregnancy because - see above - but it's also my right to judge her negatively for it.
 
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