We have people who are trying to do that right now, but they get no help from the rest of us. Why wait for an unborn messiah that may never come while neglecting hard working people who are already on this earth and already mentally equiped for the job.

Bacteria are organisms, micro-organisms. The cells that build the body are 'alive' but they are not living organisms, and certainly are not self-conscious living organisms.

I do not understand how, if not from a religious point of view, you can call a clump of let's say 100 cells, life. It is indeed the potential of it, but it isn't life.

I'm against abortion but am not sure if it should be illegal I also don't think any less of people who do get an abortion.

My parents where 18 and 20 when I was born. Dad had to drop out of college and my mom got disowned by her family. Raising baby Cadetak wasn't easy without any money or support. They sacrificed a lot. My parents divorced when I was two which made it even harder. Was it worth it? They will say yes but they would be living better lives if I wasn't born or born at a later point in time when they where more financially stable and older.

The idea of forcing a women to undergo pregnancy doesn't seem to sit well with me.


Its almost funny that we cry Murder when abortion is being discussed when fully grown, fully functional people with full lives die at the cause of war...but nobody is calling for war to be made illegal. Is it because under certain circumstances killing people is justifiable? Hmm...

Even with that said I would rather not have abortion take place.

Right on. These abortion people are so pro life , but if I am not mistaken they have taken a few lives with their violent protests.

I could be wrong though . Abortion is like pornography and prostitution. Everyone shies away from it , but weather it is legal or not people will always find ways to do it. If it is legal then at least it can be regulated.

[Try telling a raped woman she has to have the child or someone who cannot afford a baby , but the contraceptives failed. Does not seem fair to me.]

I actually did try to bring this up. It raised further questions with me. At what stage and to whom do we assign this choice of letting the fetus carry on gestating? Do we carry on if there is a strong chance the infant will die anyway? Be in pain? Have an abnormal life? Merely Down's? Where is the line drawn? And by whom?

I definitely agree it shouldn't be used as a form of birth control. However, like it or not, abortions have been around for hundreds of years. And many women have died obtaining them. Again, do we abolish them or make them illegal, only to lose more women than fetuses? Mothers of already existing children? Mother's who also may be the next person to discover some amazing cure?

Some of you are urging condoms at school "just in case". If they're going to have sex (meaning teens) then eventually some of the birth control is going to fail. And when this happens, where do we shift blame? This topic just is unending in its ethical pondering and for this reason, I believe it is up to the woman to make HER ethical decision. After all, SHE will ultimately live with the decision. We cannot paint all the situations with the same brush.

I hate to say this but no matter what, women will still seek out abortions. We/they always have. I think there is a responsibility of society to ensure a safe facility to achieve this along with counseling and information. Everything so that the woman has all the tools to make an informed decision that is right for her.

I think that is all society can do.

Someone wasn't paying attention to the OP, was he?



As for your wiki link.. it says when an embryo becomes alive.. but if that where the argument.. cancer is alive.. lets save it. There is nothing there to say when an embryo becomes a baby.. NOTHING does.. its all opinion. I do know, however, that science does use embryos for research up until a point before destroying them.. Stem cell research til it was banned, for example. (I won't get into that rant here.... and I ask you to keep this on topic by doing the same)

I also love how everyone keeps saying "every life is sacred.. unless its flawed or broken, we don't need anymore handicap kids, you can get rid of it" Can we all say double standard? If you're going to have a conviction, moral, religious or otherwise.. at least stick too it!

(and I have a child so yes, I am slow to post, bite me.)

Ok here is my opinion on the subject. I'll try to make it as simple and to the point as possible.

1. "Woman's right to choose because it's her body?"
That mentality begs this question to be asked in general. Why can't she choose to be a prostitute then without being charged? Why can't I choose to do illegal drugs without going to jail?

2. "The man can't identify with this subject matter nor make any assumptions because the woman is the one delivering the baby."
It takes two. That baby holds the genes and traits of both their mother and father. The baby is both mom and dad's kid not just the mother's.

3. Science can't prove exactly when a child is a child (in their method of interpretation). So why are laws based on faulty science? Thats pretty religious and zealous in nature. (especially for those of you shouting about how Christians are pushing their agenda on others... So are you.

4. We need to continue to teach abstinence as well as various forms of birth control. Afterall, the best safest way of life is that of staying away from sex until you find a commited partner who is willing to tie the knot.
We today fail to promote an important foundation of society. Marriage. The break down of the family structure is a major contributor of this problem as well as countless others. Why give up?

5 A "fetus" is a human no matter what stage it's at during the growth process. Let's stop suspending logic for the sake of argument. The "fetus" can't randomly turn into a fish regardless of how similar they look.
I feel this growing movement to equate human beings as being equal with the animal world is dangerous and can reap holocaust-like results if it hasn't already.

Here is a tidbit... If you murder a pregnant woman you are now guilty of the murder of both mom and child. Why the hypocrisy?

No thats not neccesarily a double standard. It can be one ethical standard which defines human life in a certain way. My standard would be any human life which is capable of functioning as a human being, or has the potential to develop that ability.

I see more ethical sense in allowing a human who is suffering and deteriorating in physical or mental ability, where they are no longer human, to die; than in killing humans who show the potential to grow into fully functioning human beings.

But then my definition of human is not just a genetic/ species driven one, but includes possessing the characteristics which define human nature.
Thus a severely physically handicapped person would still be human but one who is severely mentally handicapped, to a point where logical thought, speech, or the possession of a desire to feed themselves is impossible, would not be.

This is the ethical division point between human and all other animals. We construct ethical systems differently for application to humans than we do for application to other animals, and rightly so, but if humans do not meet the basic criteria of what defines humanity, then which set of ethical judgements do you apply to them?

Thus yes abort children so severely abnormal that they cannot function as humans with the best medical/technical assistance in the world, but only if genetic or other testing establishes this beyond doubt.

Many posters have alluded to the many difficulties women or families may have in raising unwanted children, but actully this argument is ethically disconnected from abortion. It was once assumed that it took avillage to raise a child, and that concept is coming back partly as the nanny state It is not necessarily a valid assumption in western societies that either the mother or the father of any child are the only legal guaardians of that child. All childen have some protection from their parents in most modern countries some more than others.As we take away the absolute rights of parents over their children as we have beeenn doing for 200 years now, we also release them from some of their obligationswhich the state tkes over and pays for.

If he unborn are recognised as children, then those principles would also be applied to them The village/state would be responsible for their care upbringing education etc.

I know this has not worked perfectly in the past, but ethically it is the correct thing to do compared with killing the unborn simply because one, or both, of their biological parents does not want them. Surely the idea of parents having exclusive ownership/rights over a child is almost a thing of the past in civilised countries.

You cant send young children down the mines anymore. You cant marry them off under age. You cant fail to educate them, or even refuse to innocculate them in many jurisdictions. You cant serve them alcohol; show them pornography or even physically chastise them in others.

I cant see why you should be allowed to kill them, simply because a. they are still physically attached to your body, and b, they will cause some physical or emotional stress in your life. Get over it and do whats right, not whats convenient or easy.

I appreciate that for many women it is neither convenient or easy and yet in the end it is more convenient or more easy than the alternatives they face. Again it is societies role to make those alternatives much more acceptable, even attractive, but still a woman simply does not have a right to end another human life.

This is not acceptable in any other human context; that one human may unilaterally end the life of another. A little thought and analysis will show the real reasons why this has become such an exclusive exception.

People often argue that modern people are more humane than those of the past, but this single exception puts the lie to that idea, and illustrates one of the most basic driving forces in human nature. selfishness.

I'm not seeing how killing a baby being wrong is a religious topic. Nor do I see any relation to souls. Personally, I don't believe in souls. But I think it's wrong to kill helpless little kids. Regardless of if they are born or not.

When someone is mangled in a car accident they judge if they are alive by brain activity, heart rate, and breathing. If "fetus'" do all these, how are they not alive yet? How does the baby coming out of the mother make it alive? Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not alive. I mean, would you cover up your 2year-old with a blanket and then hack it up with a samurai sword?

Also, federal law now states that abortion is okay, but if you kill a pregnant woman, you get 2 murder charges. Now THAT doesnt make sense to me....

Alright that post was rather long winded and redundant.. but I'll cover the 2 points I think are important..

A child who can not feed himself, change his own clothes and has no chance at living a full life on his own should be aborted? If S. Hawkins has been born as an invalid should he have been removed? Remember the movie Rainman? Theres an actual person like that.. a few I'm sure.. the mind of a sponge, geniuses.. where do YOU draw the line at "This person isn't worth keeping alive"? And who are YOU to give that word? it IS a double standard, one that says "You have to keep all those kids you don't want to have.. unless WE don't want you to have them." I said it before and I'll say it again.. stick to your convictions. You CAN'T have it both ways.

I also want to point out that legal abortions are done in the first trimester, when the fetus is no larger then a grape. Special cases allow for 2nd trimester abortions, these include danger to the mother, prolly the largest reason. The genetic testing needed to find defects in a fetus is not covered by government insurance, it has to be paid for by the family. It costs a LOT... and genetic defects that can be SEEN on a screen aren't picked up til late in the 2nd trimester or early in the 3rd.. at this point even pro choicers say "Too late, you had yer chance". And you are saying if these defects are found.. the baby should be aborted? You make the pro-choicers look timid!

Exactly. It is so easy to say YOU (not you literally) should do this or this because it is MY opinion. Instead of forcing ideals on someone, understand that if you scream pro-life, abortion for this person doesn't have even the single iota of effect on the pro-life person as it does on the mother. I have said before I don't think irresponsible people SHOULD get abortions as an easy way out as a result of just being stupid with sex, but that is my opinion and they shouldn't be forced to abide it. But I will never tell the rape victim she needs to or should have that kid if she doesn't want to.

who cares its just a fetus it has no mind. We are allredy to many people. Lets just nuke everything around us i'm kinda sick of neighbours aniway. ok i think now u are starting to tell me i am a sociopath....well think about the mother of the child (that isn't born yet), she is the ship that takes him in this world and she has the right to decide what should happen to him. They have no mind. About invalid persons:they should be treated as normal one and even if they have mental disorders. You all have been educated by your grandma that this thing is bad. Please open your mind and think and meditate. Sorry about the agresiveness of the post. And i think the others before me were also on my side...actualy i were on theirs

What I find interesting is that the whole Abortion right to lifers who use the bible as a reason for stopping abortion oviously didn't bother reading it. The bible doesn't expressly call the death of a fetus murder so it doesn't fall under the ten commandments. In fact there is reference to a passage dealing with the accidental killing of an unborn child and the money given to the mother for compensation which totalled I believe five schekles. The fact is in all of biblical times, infant life was not really taken into consideration, in fact most children were named about a month after birth because the infant mortality rate was so high, they didn't want to name a child that was just going to die right away. Not to mention the killing of all the firstborns etc.

So for anyone to invoke bible reasons or even god or jesus, didn't read the fineprint.

As a modern society, it should be left to the person reproducing, or in such cases choosing not to reproduce to make the decision. I have no right to tell someone to seek treatment or surgery for something happening in their body, so why should abortion be any different? The only reason people even debate such a private issue comes from the churches using abortion as a hot button issue to work up the flock into giving money. Its not like they (the churches) take in every unwanted child otherwise, there would be no children in foster care, and there are thousands. I find it equally ironic that right to lifers want every child to be born but they seldom take on the tast of adopting kids who otherwise will end up in foster care. That these same right to lifers (or at least a lot of them) usually are against gays adopting only goes to show you that they want the kids born, but don't offer up a solution or allow for others to take these kids in because of yet another moral problem they have.

Excellent points, darkmoonlady. I totally agree.

I say we can talk about getting rid of abortion once there's no longer kids dying of starvation in the world, once there's no longer kids forced to living in the streets, once kids aren't born into families that don't want them. Until then I think adding about 46 million extra babies into the world each year is sheer folly.

But Will, fetus cannot typically survive outside of the mother's womb until they are older than about 30 weeks of age. Adult humans can still live (usually) if they have brain damage in situations like car crashes. It's a lot different than a developing fetus. Yes, a fetus has a heart rate, brain activity (only after several months of development, mind you), but they certainly DO NOT breathe on their own until they leave the womb. A fetus receives oxygen from it's umbilical cord which is connected to its mother. The mother breathes FOR the baby until it leaves the womb. I don't consider a baby alive until it's able to support itself if it was taken out of the womb. A 1 month old fetus would die. A two month old fetus would die. A three month old fetus would die. A four month old fetus would, you guess it, die, and so on and so forth until the child would be able to live without ANY help from humans or technology. Premature babies have to be supported or else they will die within minutes of leaving their man-made, controlled environment. Is the child alive? Yes, because it is able to survive outside of the mother's body, though it needs a specially made environment. But, if a fetus that is merely a few months old was to be born, it would die immediately. That's called a miscarriage. When a fetus is "born" under 20 weeks of age, it's considered a miscarriage, because the baby cannot survive outside of the womb, and is usually dying or already dead. Abortion under the first 30 weeks of age is nearly the same process as miscarriage. Is miscarriage any more "wrong" than getting an abortion? Isn't the baby still "alive"? If so, then isn't it considered "murder" if a woman has a miscarriage because of her lifestyle choices? (i.e. smoking, drinking, too much sugar/caffinee, has to do manual labor, etc.) How is that any different than having a willing abortion?

Oh, and I would imagine you are charged with two murders because the fetus was wanted by it's mother and would have been born. Abortions aren't the same. Like I said with the ectopic pregnancy, the baby has to be aborted or the mother will die, so how is this ectopic baby's life any less valuable than another, normal baby's life? It's not. It's the same thing as the normal baby, so why are we okay with killing a baby that threatens the mother's life, but it's not okay to abort a baby that's going to compromise the mother's future if it's allowed to be born?

We are all old enough to make our own choices and no one has the right to stop you.
Me personally I will not abort in general.
But it really depends on your situation and why you want to abort.
No one has the right to judge you for what ever reason even if it is abortion.
I watched a docu on discovery channel when these low life Christian people were standing out side abortion clinics
Hold out sign and criticising people on their choices.
They don’t even know the circumstances these people are in!

Here's a question for anyone. If abortion was illegal, and a girl/woman didn't want to continue her pregnancy, and was desperate to end it, what do you think she would do?

I personally think she would end the pregnancy, and injure, or badly harm herself in the process.

Anyone else?

And to Kyrus, I mentioned this before, but you might have missed it; there is definitely a lot of reading! Aborting in the case of a genetically unfit fetus, my question was regarding the baby who would be born in excruciating pain, one who is brain dead, with no hope of any sort of life, unable to communicate. The worst. Then what? My point to asking that question is where does it end?

My point of view, and I keep saying it - I wouldn't do it (be able to abort). But it wouldn't do society ANY good to do away with legal abortions.

In my opinion, abortion is only acceptable in a rape case.
Or, if you've taken all precautions to not get pregnant, but for some reason birth control fails, and you don't have the money to raise a child.

Not only did you find it long winded and redundant you also obviously found it incomprehensible. There is little point in trying to debate a highly complex issue in simplistic terms, but proper debate does require an effort to read ,and attempt to understand, what others write.



That is not what i said. In fact it is almost diametrically opposed to what i said, which might be summed up (so as not to be too long winded and redundant) as

" a child who is physically unable to do those things, is still a human and deserves all the care and support needed to live as full a life as possible. A child so intellectually damaged that they cannot (and never will) form the thought, will, or desire to do them, let alone master the mechanics involved, is not human."

I dont mind you disagreeing with my ethical propositions but please quote them correctly.

I assume by right, you mean by YOUR definition of what's right, which might not necessarily be what's right for someone else.

Did you know that the younger a child is, the higher risk of pregnancy she will have, should she conceive? Premature birth, high rate of miscarriage, vitamin deficiency, multiple health risks to the mother and an almost equal amount of risk to the fetus. By saying that, I am pointing out that all your reasonings, as well intentioned as they are, are not based on absolute full fact. Any judgment you make on the subject is made on a generalization as opposed to a case-by-case scenario.

When all is said and done, it IS attached to a woman's body and SHE can decide to ingest poison to self-abort, SHE can do damaging physical things to her body to help rid herself of a fetus. SHE can do all of this. And no one can stop her in her desperation. This is alone, the reason why abortions should not be made illegal.

Its all right and good when someone like you can sit back and decide that this is a mere "convenience" to someone. I sincerely believe you would have to walk a mile (or maybe more) in a pregnant woman's shoes, who desperately does not want to have a child for whatever reason, at this moment in time.

That is with out doubt the most important point.

actually i did not. i meant in the application of universal human ethics the killing of an innocent human is always/universally wrong, and yet we bend/break that belief/ethical belief only for abortion. We justify this by saying an unborn is not human (thats a personal prejudice/belief) or that the child may be unloved or there are too many children. Possible but irrelevant to the argument.

I actually said that a womwn may not find having a child easy , but if it does not pose a threat to her own life then she has an ethical and moral responsibility to bear it to full term. Because it will be a fully functioning and independent human if she does not kill it. If women are so desperate to abort that they are prepared to harm them selves to do so, then we must change the moral social and economic nature of our societies so that she does not feel these pressures and we must take social responsibilty for that birth and child away from the mother if necessary. She need not feel morally, or economically, responsible for it if she does not want to, but she must give it a chance at life.

Just because making these changes in society is difficult, and challenging, does not mean that the simpler alternative of killing the babies is a good, just or ethical one.

We never had children and i have stated that before. What we did do was look after, at home, by ourselves, my wifes parents through six years of degeneration with altheimers. for the last few years we bathed, clothed fed, changed nappies, and watched two wonderful human beings devolve into things which no longer were human.

We continued to treat them with dignity and respect, as well as physical care, not only because we loved them, but because in our minds it was the only moral/ethical choice open too us. I appreciate this was for a relatively short period of time, but when we started, we did not know how long that commitment would be for. I dont expect women to necessarily have to care for the children they bear, but i do expect them to fulfil their responsibility to give birth, even if this comes at some social, economic, and emotional cost.

It is just possible that what they thought would be a burden, and a curse, will turn out to be ,as our experience was, one of the most uplifting and empowering times of their life.

I just wanted to add that i would never judge a woman who had an abortion. More positively i would (and have and no they wernt my children:)) offer her all the physical, emotional and financial support i could; either to bear the child, to support the child, or if she was at the point of harming herself, to abort the child. In practice the womans right to life, free from threat of physical harm, or death, outweighs my ethical concern for the child.
This is not being hypocrital. It is the application of consistent ethical standards. First, allow no harm to come to the mother, but then assure the childs right to life.

Some would argue that it always does a society good to do what it knows is morally right, and great harm to do what it knows is morally wrong.

Again we need to look at the reasons why any woman in our society would feel the need for abortion, then proceed to eliminate those needs/forces.

However, if the need is purely one of indulgence, or personal preference based on say gender , we have a right to ask how much her desire for those things outweighs a very basic right, of any human, to life.

I think its funny that people believe that a 'soul' jumps into the potential life at the moment of conception, because we know that the world population pre 1800 was around 1 billion.

These days, we're around 6 billion.

Does this mean that during this period, a whole bunch of souls suddenly decided to start a normal life here on Earth? Were there immigration papers to fill out? And when they finally got to Earth, we they watching the people having sex to ensure that they jumped into the egg/sperm mix at the exact time that the life began?

You see my point, right?

-Josh

Depends on your definition of soul josh.

i believe that every human being has a soul which comes at the moment of conception, and continues to grow and develop through out a humans life.'

How a person thinks, and acts, influences the development of that soul. However the soul is not transferrable. At death it, and the body, go to the grave, to sleep until both are ressurected.

Humans will be given a new incorruptible body, and their soul, including all their learned experiences, will be restored to them at that time. Thus the number of souls is always exactly the same as the number of living humans, and each soul is unique to each person. It is in the weighing of the sou,l or the judgement of the soul, that eternal life or eternal death are apportioned to each living entity.(body and soul)

This belief influences my belief that every human conceived has a potential existence, body and soul, which should not be denied them.

We should wait for the Soul to actually be proven to exist before it can enter in these reality based debates. The same goes for the sanctity of life, which should be even harder to prove.

Fair comment cof, and in my first posts i did not mention a soul or a religious perspective. However i felt that josh had only one view of the nature of a soul.

To me, the exiastence of a soul is absolutely self evident and demonstrable. Every human has one.

Whether it exists in any form, after death, is where religious belief comes into play, but the soul is an integral part of our self aware sentience and consciousness. It is teachable and functional. It is what makes humans different from all other animal species, and is connected with philosophy, ethical development, creativity, free will, an understanding of right and wrong, good and evil, and all those other human qualities which define humanity.

Again, the sanctity of life, which i deliberately did not use, is a religious based belief.

The right to life, of a being which will develop sentience, self will etc is almost universally accepted as ethically indisputable. Particularly when that individual has done nothing to deserve rdeath and is actually incapable of chosing to harm another.

Only in the case of abortion is an exception made to this basic human right. As i said, when we examine the reasons why this exception is made, it says a lot about human priorities and human nature.

So we say unborn is not human, but you say severely handicap is not human.. whats the difference? You condone us for killing unborn children.. the SAME DNA as the rest of the human race... but you yourself say that because someone can't speak or move they're not human.. its still the same DNA.. and you are a hypocrite for that thought.



I love how you keep saying CAN NOT.. as if it has anything at all to do with you. Let me point out.. that having a child for ANYONE if a HUGE change... and having a child can be a threat.. a totally healthy viable 'human' child can threaten a woman's life in more ways the you can Imagen. There is a moral obligation in the bible to the mother and father.. there is a moral obligation in the bible to the church, to your elders, to your job. A woman who has an unwanted child can lose so much.. her job, her family, her home, her husband or lover.. a child can be a threat.. and I would assume that MOST women who have abortions are ridding themselves of a threat. An unwanted child can destroy a womans life.. and in the end that does nothing for the child at all.

My mother had me when she was 16.. She NEVER had an education, never kept a job more then 2 months, had a string of abusive boyfriends. We where homeless more often then not, living in cars, in shelters, with friends. Her family disowned her. There where times when we had no food, no electricity. She had 2 other kids after me.. you know what? If I had to die to give those other two kids a chance at a GOOD life.. I would have been happy. To give my brother and sister a chance at a better life I would have gladly offered myself up. A baby is NOT just a change in lifestyle, not just a little responsibility.. it is life changing! You will NEVER understand that.

With respect, neither do you know enough about me to make those judgements of me. I am not a hypocrite, in that i live by my beliefs, no matter how hard that is.

I have taken in and cared for some of those children whose parents threw them away after they were born. I sponsor and care for others in the same boat. I have taken in, cared for, and been responsible for women and children who were bashed by their partners and had no where to go. My sister in law had her first child at 15 and that girl had her first child at 15. I understand about poverty, social conditioning, despair, depression and suicide, drug use and mutilation. I have wrapped a young mans hansd to stop him bleeding to death after he smashed all the windows in his caravan ,in anger and despair.

I understand you saying you would die for your siblings. But you should not be placed in that position. That is no solution for you, or for them. If they knew you did that, how would that make them feel. It is not your right or your responsibility to chose death as a solution, although i can understand you feeling this way.

Why should this responsibility be thrown back on you. As i said i do NOT expect a woman to take on the responsibility of an unwanted child. In fact that could be harmful to both, but that child has a right to life. After it is born it is societies responsibility to care for it, nurture it and raise itThat society may include family friends etc or it may extend to the wider society and taxpayers in general.
My parents had 4 kids We only had second hand clothes and ate nasturtium leaves and dripping sandwiches at times when no other food was available. I would not want any one of my sisters or brothers to die so we could have had a marginally better life. In reality,one less child in that family would have made no real difference to our circumstances, which were determined by economic times, family history and luck. We would also have been homeless if not for a maternal grandmother who took us in, when her husband died at about the time i (the first child ) was born. In return we looked after her in that home until her death at the age of 96.

I should have been more clear, it wasn't a direct response to you, but an addition about the use of the soul as an argument. The soul as a name for who we are exists as an idea, the soul as in the immaterial part of us that goes to heaven, hell, limbo, hades or stays on Earth to haunt an old building doesn't exist. If it could be proven to exist anyway, there'd be a lot of interesting points raised, some relevant to this discussion. Firstly, are souls completely blank, sex wise? Does a female soul enter the body and cause the baby to be born a girl, or does a blank soul enter the body and the sex get determined by what happens during prenancy? If there are blank souls, what's the explanation for transexuality? If a fetus dies, intentionally or unintentionally, in the womb, where does the soul go? Limbo? Heaven? Or does it go back and wait for another fetus to inhabit? If it's the former, isn't abortion saving this soul from a potentially terrible life, neglected by it's birth parents?

Its not my right? So not only do I not have a right to have an aportion, I don't have a right to die? I don't have a right to take my own life? I have NO RIGHTS over my own body at all?

Bull hocky.

If I wanted other people to decide everything for me, I wouldn't live in a FREE country.

And seriously.. WHO is going to take care of all those unwanted kids? The church? HAH! The goverment? HAHAHA... My stomach hurts I'm laughing so hard. No one wants a child.. no one cares until that child is old enough to die for its country. Do you have ANY idea how hard it is to adopt a child? I don't mean a baby.. I mean a child.. a 5 year old, a 10 year old.. do you know what kind of red tape is set in place? Gay people can't adopt.. thats the biggest one right there.. What the HECK is the government going to do with 65 million unwanted kids if they're not willing to give them good loving homes? Are YOU going to take them all? Maybe abortion is a product of the environment.. but until the environment changes it is and will be an acceptable means of survival.

I think it is wonderful that you took care of her parents in their last years. And I do appreciate what you are saying. But again, this is not realistic for a lot of people. For one, their safety can be at risk, number two, a family may have their own kids to take care of and these days two incomes is necessary. Full time working caregivers will burn out quicker than a birthday candle. Plus, people with dementia CAN become dangerous to those around them (lighting fires, being violent, etc).

My point in bringing this up, is again, that you are not looking at possible scenarios but only ONE generic way things must happen. I think that if you could you would be inflicting your moral values erroneously on others. And there are many reasons why your ideas are less than ideal. I am not sure I would want my heard earned tax dollars going towards orphanages or the medical coverage of a young girl.

Making pregnant women carry their baby to term and then taking it away from them really seems over the top and a huge infringement on our basic human rights. This is what women mean, OUR bodies. Ultimately, no one can make them do anything they don't want to, unless they do it illegally. Sorry, but that's just the way it is.

I repeat for the last time, i am speaking from ethical principles.

And i do not accept that just because something is too hard we should not attempt it We should aim to do what is right and fail rather than aim to do what is wrong and succeed .

I also said that my definition of human, included potential, thus our parents had no humanity and no potential for it. Young babies have no humanity but will inevitably develop it, thus the potential exists in all of them.

And yes i knew saying you had no right to choose death would stir things up. I actually think we all, as rational humans, have the right to choose death. How societies can kill babies and refuse voluntary euthenasia of adult humans is beyond me. What i meant specifically is that you do not have a basic moral right to choose to die for your siblings(except where this would actually save one or more of their lives ).

You dont have an ethical right to surrender the asolute right you have to life, for a conditional improvement in the quality of their life( you can do so of course but it is a mistake to think you have some moral ethical right or authority to do so.) just ask your siblings their opinion first.
In real life, as i said before, some compromises must be made, but in principle it is always safer to aim for ethical practices rather than accept unethical ones.
I also appreciate and empathise with what you were saying about adoption. We were middle class white australians and we could not adopt children because of the regulations around them. Of course social mores changed in our generation, and very few young mothers were forced to give up their babies. Australia probably has one of the best social welfare systems in the world, when it comes to children and young mothers. It gives good sex and life education in schools, supports young mothers staying at school, and gives generous financial social and medical support for them. None the less they often remain among the poorer members of society, with particular problems such as social isolation in suburban areas.

But ethical practices - By who's ethics? This is the point I guess you and I are dancing around on.

Take australia for instance. We face a declining population because our birthrate fell below replacement level. The govt offers women $5000 to have each child, then maternity leave, extensive child support payments etc, Many women are choosing to have babies for econonic benefits and so our fertility rate is rising. Countries can (and will need to) take some form of social control over fertility in future.

We are more than prepared to pay those costs because the only other answer to our social and economic requirements is massive immigration of young fertile people.

In return for those benefits the govt exerts greater social control over all children, includig compusory health checks and innoculations paid for by the state. Education at state schools is basically free if you are not wealthy. So times change. Now in australia at least we want and value every child we can get. kids in state care are put up in expensive hotel rooms when no other care is available. We certainly need to refine and improve our management of birth and child raising but it will happen.

And are you seriously saying it is better for a woman to abort a child, than for her to give it up for adoption, or for care by the state. If so i think it says a lot about how we, and women in particula,r have been socialised into a certain set of moral values. Certainly it may be easier, but that, again, does not make it a better or more moral choice.

Like it or not, western democracies are exerting increasing control over their citizens . This is often through economic and social controls, rather than direct political authority, but it will probably increase for some time yet. So get used to seeing a lot more social controls on people.

It doesn't make a less moral choice either according to some. I just know that in my country, which is Canada, this could mean potential disaster, resulting in over populated orphanages, kids who are neglected, uncared for. So yeah maybe it would be better to abort. And by you saying women in particular have been socialized into a certain set of moral values, again, this is your moral values being projected here, as you've acknowledged. I see it as a realistic necessity. According to ME, women who have abortions do not have any less morals for making a very difficult decision, but hopefully one that is right for her.

What I've said all along is that women and girls will have abortions regardless of whether they are legal or not. History has shown this. Neither you, nor the government can change this.

Good question .There are many ethical codes developed in western societies since the time of the greeks. These fall into diferent categories, but the one i am talking about is called universal ethical principles.

It is what is seen as generrally universally accepted ethical behaviour. In all ethical codes i know of.(some are religious based ,some incorporate elements of religious belief and some are avowedly and determinedly, non religious) human life is allocated a basic value. What constitutes humanity may vary a little but once it is assigned that value then other ethical principles fall into place around it.

At heart, one main ethical princpile is that no one has an arbitrary right to take another human life. We punish all people who do. Some states /societies allow the state to take a life in state sanctioned war or as capital punishment. A few states/ societies allow a person to take another human life in self defence, although this is usually conditional on a court decision. Once upon a time, a crime of passion was a defence in some places, and so was being so drunk you could not know what you were doing. in modern times both these "defences" have been removed as no longer being ethically acceptable Children and the innocent are afforded particular protection, because of their vulnerability, and inability to protect them selves.

And yet. In abortion, and only in abortion, are children refused protection and put to death. This falls outside all established ethical parameters developed throughout human history, particularly the growing move to protect young children from so many other things.

Why not? Many societies had no, or extremely low, abortion rates, and in western history, abortion in any numbers is a very recent phenomenum. Abortions have climbed as our family, especially intergenerational family, structure has broken down.

Abortion is not simply a given of human nature. Given a real choice ,with a caring and supportive environment, very few women would chose an abortion ( especially given contraception being readilly available.) My point is that we are not providing an environment where women have no need to abort. Societies can do this if we choose to do so, and have the will to carry it through.

I would say our intergenerational family has evolved. Not necessarily broken down. Abortion is not a cause of that and it certainly is not a recent phenomenon! Abortion has been around for centuries. Name a society that had no or low abortion rates. I would love to discuss that. I wonder which society you would be thinking of.

I said, or thought i said, that the breakdown in intergenerational families was one cause for an increase in abortion. Before that illegitimate children were often accepted into a multi generational family which had the resources to provide for them where a simgle mother can not(without considerable govt help).

Ill get back to you on the abortion rates, but in the middle ages ,for instance, illlegitimacy was not a big social stigma Few if any children were aborted because nearly 10 out of every 12 children born to a couple died in birth or within the first few years of infancty. Children were valued and an economic value to a family. In any society where children are a net economic value rather than a cost to a family the abortion rate tends tobe considerably lower.

Hate to say it, but I just did a quick google and found much on abortions in the middle ages. One site even stated that abortion was more or less the standard of birth control at that time. I will find more tomorrow. I'm zonked. Have a good night!

This is all I have to say on abortion and I believe there was a video that actually did this experiment as well. If you think abortion is wrong and it should be illegal think for a moment that it is. So then a women has an abortion, since it's illegal she should be punished then correct? Then what should be that punishment? And don't say that it is between her and God and we can't punish her, because how in the blue hell can u make it illegal then without punishment? If you think it should be illegal then a women who gets an abortion should go to prison just as if she would if she killed someone. If you don't think she should be punished or punished in that way then you don't think it should be illegal. That's all I have to say on that matter.

I also did a quick google. Try this site for both maps and statistics on current abortion rates.

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abo...orldabrate.html


You will find(and i as interested in this) that abortion rates vary hugely from about 21/100 pregnancies in america to less than 2/100pregnancies in many countries. Something i never knew was that in our northern territory which has the youngest and most fertile population in Australia, with a high indigenous population, the abortion rate is among the lowest in the world.

This is likely to reflect both economic and social advantages perceived by people in the NT to having children, and also reflect the extended family networks of aboriginal people.
India mexico and some s american and african countries have very low rates so religion is not an exclusive determinant. On the other hand, in california over 50 % of all pregnancies are terminated.

California is also recognised as probably the least religious/conservative state in america.

The same site has an historical breakdown of abortions in america. I appreciate that many illegal abortions may not have been reported, but those where the woman needed medical attention after abortion would have been, and the statistics are still very small until abortion was legalised..
The statistics are interesting and frightening.

In 1930 there were 2 reported abortions and 2 million live births(estimated)in the usa.
1969 was the first year in which more than 20,000 babies were aborted.
In 1977 this had reached over one million abortions and 3.3 million live births.
By 2004 the figures had declined to 934000 abortions and 4.1 million live births.
In 2006 abortions were down to 517000 and there were 4.2 million live births.
These figures show that societal pressures and govt policies can significantly alter abortion rates.

If you go to this book on fertility in england
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=RgHk87...p;hl=en#PPP1,M1

You will find that in parts of england in the early 1900s medical records indicate no abortions performed at all in many centres and counties. In other communities there were some. A suggested reason for the difference is that women in some places had the tradition of spacing their births as a means of controlling fertility and thus not requiring abortions to do so.

Googling and reading the first page of articles under abortion in the midle ages i cam to a slightly different conclusion to you. True the knowledge of some abortificients was apparently known(although there is some dispute among modern scholars about their efficacy and usage) As a history teacher i already knew that ,especially in some classes of society, abortion was available , although no where near as reliable as modern contraception.

The real question was did women choose to use it and were the methods available to ordinary women. It is difficult to assess this, but given the conditions of women at the time it is unlikely that most could access or use such agents. A number of the scholarly treatise i read attributed modern feminist agendas and freedoms/ logic to women of the middle ages. iIn reality, given the education, culture, and world view of the ordinary women at that time, such modern viewpoints are so unlikely as to be unbelievable.
I rest my case that much can be done to reduce terminations through societal reconstruction.

Maybe, maybe not Mr Walker:

Young Aboriginal women are denied the reproductive choice available to other Australians because of ingrained cultural assumptions and poor access to services, a social health expert says.

Kerry Arabena, chair of the ACT Health Promotion Board and a visiting research fellow at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, called for reproductive rights in Aboriginal communities.

Pertinent part:

Finding, and getting to, a public hospital presents its own problems if she wants an abortion.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/pregnancy--ivf/...6335854201.html

There are lots of reasons. But during the first trimester you wouldn't consider a foetus alive. What do you think a ban will do? It'll just mean they'll go somewhere else, they'll go underground which will be worse. And to be fair unless it is you involved you have absolutely no right to say whether or not they can have an abortion. Ask a social worker how well unwanted children do and the physiological damage that affects both them and the mother.

There are many reasons why you would consider an abortion. What if contraception fails? What if they are too young? What if someone makes a one off mistake? Who are you to tell them they have to have a baby? It is not your choice or right to tell them.

If you want to know what will help though. Far superior sex education and a better attitude towards sex. Teach that it is healthy and normal, teach about contraception (teaching abstinence is known to not work) and make sure the people know the consequences. Even then you are going to get people who will make a mistake or have their contraception fail.

I disagree. In my world view i have the same right, and in fact obligation, to say this as i would have a right to say to a person who kept slaves that what they do is morally/ethically wrong.

I would do no more than try to dissuade them, and if they went ahead, then personally i would offer all the emotional and physical support i could, but actually I, and anyone, does have a right to say to any woman (with some specific exemptions) that abortion is ethically/morally wrong.

Two generations ago this was of course the almost universal viewpoint of people in western societies

The fact that so many people today cannot see/recognise this viewpoint. shows how skewed societal and personal values have become in the last 50 or so yearsf rom what have almost always been seen as basic human values.
First to the value of individual rights over societal rights, and more specifically to a womans right to absolute determination over, not only her own body but that of another human being who, for a relatively short time is physically attached to hers. This physical attachment neither automatically confers ownership over the baby, nor any authority to do with it as she chooses. Society may attempt to create this illusion and even enshrine it in law, but that does not make it right or acceptable

Dont worry, not only abortion is an issue. In tomorrow's society women will come under increasing moral and legal pressure not to smoke,, drink or do other things which may harm her baby. Eventually, given current litigation practices, a child will successfully sue its biological mother for harm done to it by her actions while it was in her womb, if in fact this has not already happened.

have no real disgreement with this as it is written

In fact my "social advantages" meant just what your "ingrained cultural assumption"s does

Aboriginal women may not want abortions for cultural reasons(white women live in a very different cultural context)

Remoteness may play a part but i can also see some cultural imperialism appearing here (even if possibly the author is of aboriginal descent himself)

It includes an assumption that modern white reproductive rights are superior to traditional aboriginal ones.

It also includes an interesting assumption that, contrary to popular belief, modern western abortions are more effective/safer than traditional aboriginal ones.Or that there are no such things as traditional aboriginal abortive medicines and knowledge.