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New Abortion Law Wave
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I'll say this.
Is a cell alive? Yes, but it acts according to what your DNA has coded it to do. If you knowingly release (or accept) a sperm (which is a cell and therefore is alive) into an egg, then you have made a conscious decision to create a baby. The minute that the sperm hits the egg and fertilizes it, since both the egg and the sperm are alive, does that not make the completed product alive?
That's just my thinking, completely barring the fact that I'm Christian, as some of you already know.
Is a cell alive? Yes, but it acts according to what your DNA has coded it to do. If you knowingly release (or accept) a sperm (which is a cell and therefore is alive) into an egg, then you have made a conscious decision to create a baby. The minute that the sperm hits the egg and fertilizes it, since both the egg and the sperm are alive, does that not make the completed product alive?
That's just my thinking, completely barring the fact that I'm Christian, as some of you already know.
Wow, I never realized how much of a burden it is to be born with eggs and a uterus until the topic of abortion came into existence.
The crux of the issue is that there are millions of cases where the sperm unwillingly finds the egg or the woman unwillingly receives it. Setting aside the question of classifying "life", how is one meant to respond in that situation, especially if the woman is unable to birth the child or support it once born?
If you think a person can grow up to become a certain someone also raises a different concern and that is that there is no free will since everything is on a fixed path and despite all we do we all end up the way we're supposed to do. I don't agree with the notion that that person could have become someone who cured world hunger or whatsoever since that would be also agreeing there is no free will and we just end up how we're supposed to end up. I live iright now not in the '' what if scenario and in 10 years time this or that ''
Not doing things decreases risks. Aye, this is true. But most everything has some inherent risk to it, especially the fun things in life. Why go rock climbing if you could fall and die? Because it's fun. I agree though, the risk should be taught and explained in highschool, as well as how to avoid them when possible. The marriage and "avoid sex" bit won't fix anything, but explaining the reality of the situation and how to mitigate the risk will greatly reduce those risk. Which seems fairly straight forward.
And really, the consequences for sex are the risk of STIs(current name for STDs), potential for unwanted pregnancy, potential shaming by peers and culture, things like that. Those are "punishment" enough, and we should be actively trying to work towards a world where there are no natural risk like that. There's no need to go in the opposite direction and add created punishments on top of it. You do you. And just like if someone goes rock-climbing and hurts themselves (do you consider that punishment for wanting to rock-climb?), I will still feel for them and insist they are allowed to get medical care to make it better. An abortion would be an equivalent to getting a antibiotic to treat certain types of STIs
Last edited by osaka35,
I didn't realize he ended up suspended in the end. :/
it was strange that OP didn't come back to respond to anything yet.
it was strange that OP didn't come back to respond to anything yet.
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Here we go; sorry if I get carried away.
Yes, there are cases where it's unwilling. That doesn't change the fact that it's a being that is alive, no matter how small it may be. Now, in the cases where it's threatening another life (the mother), then if it's necessary, I'm all for it. It should be open as a medical procedure to save another life, not to be available because one doesn't want to deal with the consequences of their own decisions.
(As a side note and going into me being a Christian and how that affects my views, I believe that the child is better off in heaven than down here anyways, but we aren't to dictate that decision without taking into account that both lives [the child and the mother] are alive, and that saving one means destroying the other.)
Not every sexual encounter results in a baby, indeed I would put reasonable money on most of them not doing that. Even if it looks like it going to head that way we seem to have some nice means of stopping it.
Fertilisation is an interesting point to pick -- some go for implantation within the uterus (or possibly fallopian tube in the case of ectopic pregnancies, I have no idea what artificial wombs would do for those people), some go for division of cells, others pick other points which topic has already covered (heart beats, central nervous system formation, brain activity, viability without special measures...)
That said even if it is alive what value should I assign to it so I can determine the appropriate level of concern for its wellbeing? If I leave it on the floor it is not going to do much, I would struggle to feed it if it was sitting on my bench... only with some fairly specialist equipment would it become anything.
Similarly we are probably within spitting distance of human cloning and/or generating pluripotent stem cells from adult cells, and some more fun things besides (we can create life from inert chemicals these days, simple bacteria at present but still life). Do I have to be appalled that when you scratched an itch a few minutes ago that you have condemned a certain number of cells (possibly a number equal to all the best killers in history) got condemned to not be alive any longer, or go on to form more complex life?
This is not why they got a ban
feel free to share whatever is relevant, as long as it doesn't violate the forum rules. just follow those rules and you're golden. It will never harm your reputation on here to disagree with a mod. We do not ban because someone disagrees with us. That'd be pretty dang silly.
Last edited by osaka35,
It's possibly controversial to say that a rape victim should still birth the child, but aside from that at least we are on common ground that when necessary, steps should be taken to prioritise the mother's life over the developing fetus.
Great, thanks for the clarification.This is not why they got a ban
For those saying "adopt or gtfo", you can be against the murder of homeless people without inviting one to live with you.
For those angry at Alabama, it's simply a sanctuary state for unborn babies
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Grade school, not high school. We don't wait until you're 14 until we start teaching people about washing their hands, antibiotics, vaccines, etc. Just like in rock climbing we don't wait until you're on the cliff or in sky diving we don't shove you out the plane first before teaching you how the parachute works. There's this massive pathology that exists that teaching children how to safely engage in sex will encourage them to have sex. I think there's very few 13+ year olds that need encouragement to have sex. Given puberty can start as early as 8 in many population groups, it makes little sense to not teach children as early as reasonably possible.
That's precisely why so many seem to be against abortion (and contraception). They want people to be "punished' with children so they and others can learn from that example. The last thing they want is substantial sex liberation free of most of the risks of sex. Why? I can only imagine because they themselves aren't able to control their own libido nor do they expect their children can either. God's wrath is apparently not enough, so they need the mortal punishment of AIDs and screaming babies. Again, it's in black humor that there is so much crying about "welfare queens" popping out babies, yet in the same breathe will they speak about the horrors of abortion? It seems like, if anything, "welfare queens" are doing the Lord's work.
It seems as though a major sticking point for those in the pro choice camp is determining where life begins or defining what life is. In a community with our apparent high level of intelligence why is this even an issue? Almost every life form on earth has something in common. Generally speaking, the male and female join in mating and as a result of this union, new life is conceived. It's not a 100% guarantee that offspring will be created but the probability is high. Also of note is the fact that the chances of conception drop significantly in the absence of mating. (without external aid) Of course for the human, the mating process is generally pleasurable. That may not be the case for other life forms. But the condensed version of the process is the male inserts his penis into the female vagina and after an extended time, sometimes not so extended, the male begins to ejaculate and thereby the process continues as then the seed/sperm begins to make attempts to fertilize the female egg. Once the seed has successfully fertilized the egg the process then begins in earnest for the creation of offspring. Then after 9 months give or take, the female goes into labor and the offspring arrives.
Each life form on earth has this in common with mankind. It varies from species to species as some lay eggs and from there the offspring hatches and then arrives. Although there are many different species in this world, overall the end result is the same. Male and female mate producing offspring.
This concep, on the surface, does not seem difficult to comprehend. But let's look at an analogy. I know you Fast6191 and others engaged in this conversation seek to define the exact point in which life begins but if you will allow me some latitude.
Consider the 100% USDA approved pure beef hamburger. It's components are really quite simple.
You take ground beef from a cow, you shape it into a patty, season it if you prefer, introduce the beef patty to a heat source such as an open grill, cook it until desired level of doneness has been achieved, remove from heat source prepare normally a bun to receive the patty, with your choice of trimmings. (lettuce, tomato, ketchup, etc,) then place cooked patty on prepared bun and the end result is a hamburger.
Also the same applies to an asphalt road or a computer. You will start out with the basic components but the end result is the complete package, the finished product if you will.
But if you started out to make a hamburger, it doesn't matter in the early stages what it looks like and it doesn't matter what anyone's opinion is. It may only look like ground beef, bun and condiments but even in it's basic elements, because you started out to make a hamburger that's what it always was and will be.
In the case of a human life, yes I know it's an extremely crude example but the bed is your grill, the male provides the hamburger meat and the female the bun. It may not look that way during the mating phase but mating is meant to produce offspring (life), so even though you break it down to the basic elements it's still life.
My reference to endangered species such as the white rhino was a little more far reaching than whether or not the rhino desires an abortion. Since white rhinos and all animals on the endangered list cannot express it for themselves, since they cannot tell us they do not wish to become extinct, it has fallen upon man, who is probably responsible for them being in jeopardy to begin with, to try to save them. As you can see in the last 100 years the intense effort to save those on the verge of extinction.
So why should man place any less value on human life? Why should man strive any less intensely to save his own?
And yes it's true we cannot know what or who the unborn baby may grow up to be but the same can be said of Einstein or Beethoven. Yes we could be aborting the next Hitler but we could also be aborting the next Einstein.
Who thinks that they or others for that matter maybe older folk think that they have achieved nothing in life?
Guess what you have you exist because you made the journey where others failed the Sperm met the Egg that single Sperm was you so what gives others the right to take that chance away from others achieving the same goal.
Yes I am aware of Twins etc blabla The Sperm is the Soul the Egg is the genetic makeup for the Flesh and physical body which alone is made up off Atoms/Adam.
Guess what you have you exist because you made the journey where others failed the Sperm met the Egg that single Sperm was you so what gives others the right to take that chance away from others achieving the same goal.
Yes I am aware of Twins etc blabla The Sperm is the Soul the Egg is the genetic makeup for the Flesh and physical body which alone is made up off Atoms/Adam.
It's 85% effective in humans, but it varies pretty wildly with other animals. Meanwhile, less than 1% with Birth Control Implant or IUD are pregnant in a year*. You get different figures depend on where you look.
* The figure I've usually seen is practically around 0.01% for BCI, compared to 0.5% for Tubal ligation. Given an 19-54 population of ~71 million women in the US, that means around 7,100 worst case scenario unwanted pregnancies if BCI was heavily used. Funny how there isn't a massive push for BCI for women. Funny how male condoms, which are pretty damn terrible, are pushed.
There are asexual reproduction methods, cloning based methods, single sex things (parasitic wasps being fun ones to contemplate here), and depending upon how you want to categorise things (individual forms, biomass, area spread) some of those may even be main form of it, but the shared thing seemed like a throwaway comment so I will skip that one beyond this.
Life is actually not really where I go. I go with suffering instead. If something lacks the capability to suffer in a meaningful capacity and it prevent suffering in something that can meaningfully do so then it seems like a fairly easy decision, as time progresses then lines get a bit blurrier as far as this ethics lark goes. Though amusingly the lines where suffering and self sustaining without serious intervention life start align pretty well for a lot of things. To be fair though that was mostly the other thread I went for that one in.
The other part is a fairly standard philosophical pondering (I think I first heard it as "if I run my finger along this table it surely removes some atoms from the table, when is it no longer a table?"). It is generally noted there is no fundamental force of the universe (or direct consequence of it) that yields "human", or indeed anything much beyond the elements and their approximate distribution. We therefore get to invent a philosophy, define a human, define their value, figure out what behaviours we care to discourage and how... and thus we are having this discussion.
Again though I am still not at life, or life form capable of suffering, as much as a few ingredients with a half decent chance at becoming it one day.
"but mating is meant to produce offspring"
Meant by what and why should I care what it thinks/cares/implies? I will also return to the "does this mean I am supposed to fuck an infertile, menopausal or otherwise incapable of conceiving woman?" thing. There is a massive social component to such activities for humans and a lot of primates.
"cannot express it for themselves"
I believe that was the joke.
"So why should man place any less value on human life? Why should man strive any less intensely to save his own?"
Actions speak louder than words here (quite a few people out there living a horrific existence while we dick around on the internet), and again is it a life and is it as valued in all the same ways? Human life is not rare, you said as such, and while that is not the sole determinant of value it surely factors into this. I am also not sure it is all that useful an analogy -- saving rhinos is something of a vanity project done by humans because it is cool.
I am still stuck on this future potential thing as well. If something is essentially random (I would argue it is anything but -- nature and nurture is at play here and if nurture is out of the window because plans had to change and the time, tools and talent are not there any more nor likely to develop...) then why worry about it? Did my choosing to walk the dog this afternoon rather than go to the gym or wherever it is the ladies hang out nowadays to find someone to have kids with do the same and deny the chance of something special happening? Why is abortion different from any number of pregnancy prevention methods as far as this is concerned (if nature was allowed to take its course and all that)? Do now have an excuse for my favourite philosoraptor though
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Cells that are part of a larger system, in my opinion, are different from cells that are actively trying to create a new life. I know, there are probably exceptions to that, but that's always been how I think of it.
That's true that it's controversial. Though most likely completely unwanted, I still think of it as life. Unless it's life is causing the mother to die (or cause her health to possibly deteriorate to the point where it could be fatal, which is probably a lot of cases of rape victoms due to how the "action" is performed), I wouldn't want to unnecessarily stop the process of development.
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