I was recently converted almost completely to pro-life (beyond like 8 weeks) and found this video particularly appalling. But I’d like us to chat about abortion.
WARNING: The following video is very graphic and should be viewed by mature audiences only
She is particularly concerned about the problem of pregnancies in orphanages, where children often live through puberty together without any proper adult supervision. These pregnancies are often not known about until after 12 weeks.
Also - the video above I would like to clarify is not graphic visually, but in the subject matter it discusses.
The strongest argument that video promoted to me was one in favour of contraception and sex education.
As for the issue of abortion, I’m ambivalent but I think I have to come in favour of abortion (I hate the terms pro-life and pro-choice) up to a reasonable stage of pregnancy, though I’ll leave others to discuss what that stage should be. Judith Jarvis Thomson makes a very interesting argument in favour of abortion, which I find compelling if somewhat uncomfortable. Essentially, it’s an issue of individual autonomy and moral rights and obligations, not what you would prefer to see occur.
Fun is not the only measure of interest. You’ve entirely failed to miss the point. I didn’t want you to be amused, I wanted you to try (for the love of God just try) to think.
I don’t want to watch, which is why I posted. Shutting your eyes doesn’t stop something being in front of you: you just can’t see it.
As for you caring less: you really ought to have some kind of opinion.
That’s what the hell.
You dismissed something of considerable implication as boring without regard to, well, anything. The abortions in question in this video are occurring at the latest possible stages. They are almost indisputably horrifically cruel murders, yet entirely sanctioned. Learn to deal with things that aren’t enjoyable, but still worthwhile.
Depending on your stance there are lives at stake (like 46m per year) and you can’t be arsed to give it the 6 mins. That’s why I’m disgusted with you.
The subject matter of the video is consistent throughout.
I specified at the top of the thread that I intended the video to spark a discussion, ergo your opinion is welcome.
As for that opinion: what about adoption? Furthermore, there are children living in the most abject poverty or suffering the worst kinds of abuse that don’t wish for death, but wish for better life. Whatever they have, they are still glad they exist at all. Is ease for society justification for murder?
“Without it, we’d have several teenage mothers, most of whom, would be unable to properly raise a child at their age anyway.”
Yes and no. While many teenagers do lack the life experiences to be succesful parents on their own, the same cannot be said of those who recieve support/advice from their own parents.
“And the teenage parents would likely fall into debt because raising a child is no easy task.”
But carrying a pregnancy to term doesn’t necesitate raising the child. Plenty of people give their unwanted kids up for adoption.
On an aside, I’ve yet to see someone satisfactorily address this paradox: how can a fetus be a human being for the purpose of declaring its destruction ‘murder’ yet be granted rights (i.e.: to inhabit another person’s body) that human beings do not have?
Blood: I don’t give a shit that a parent doesn’t want to give up their child. Moreover, I find it reprehensible that they are willing to kill their child rather than give it up: that is selfish in the extreme. Utterly unjustifiable in any way.
As for a rape baby. It’s a tough case. I’m inclined to side with abortion.
WingZ - having a different set of rights doesn’t mean the old rights must be excluded. Furthermore, I am not arguing on the basis of rights, but on the basis that it is wrong to kill another living thing and especially wrong in the case of a human.
Nemo, in the absence of rights - including a right to life - by what means or measure would it be wrong? (You could go divine command/prohibition, but what does that say of those deaths which were divinely sanctioned?)
Blood, what separates any legitimate concern a parent may have for how a child eventually turns out from simple lazyness or reluctance on their part to ensure the child doesn’t have a bad life?
I think they are making a horrifically immoral decision. What changes when the baby is born? It is already an independent life. You would not argue that a parent may rightly decide to kill their toddler because it is too much work to raise them and they just don’t want the next sixteen years.
How so? It is physically dependent on the body of the pregnant woman to survive. If we accept that individuals are sovereign over their own body what right do we have to deny them the choice to decide whether they want to support the life of another being inside themselves? Whether we find it moral or not isn’t relevant. I understand that can be an uncomfortable standpoint but the situation is very different from the murder of an independent life because it affects a person quite uniquely.
Incidentally, did you read the Wiki I linked to, I’d be interested to hear your response to it. There was also a very good article in this month’s New Internationalist which I’m too tired to hunt out and summarise at the moment but I will do tomorrow.
WingZ - without rights you can still have definite morals.
Jaiden - at many stages it would be able to live outside of the mother before the abortion threshold. It’s simply not given the chance.
Also, we say that siamese twins are two different people: they’re sharing a body: perhaps we should just give one priority to kill the other? (The only time this happens atm is when one lacks any proper set of organ systems.)
The thing about autonomy of your body is that even if you didn’t mean to get pregnant you did and you have to deal with that in a correct way, not the easiest way. A woman may feel having something grow inside her is invasive, but either
she should have been more careful
she should have found out and acted earlier (plenty of people discover they’re pregnant months before abortion: they’re just making it worse)
she should damn well accept that that is her biological function.
I agree its an extreme level of dependency, but one would never argue normally that an individual has the right to terminate the life of one’s dependents if one has decided it would be better to do so.
My other problem with abortion is it does lead to the attitude ‘I’ll just get an abortion’ There may not be many, but some girls use it as contraception and this surely flies in the face of all the reasoned arguments in its favour?
I don’t know the courts’ legal reasoning behind the distinction, but I will say this: the fetus was a welcome guest in Laci Peterson’s body as opposed to an unwelcome guest in someone else’s.
Imagine a hospital has a patient they don’t like in a critical condition who has been put there by the government (he has come from prison). Should they be able to simply eject him from hospital, or should they be mandated to help him until he is able to survive himself?
Why is it still a bad analogy? I asked you your moral stance on them doing so, not whether or not it happens. I’m asking your moral stance on abortion, not whether or not it’s legal.
It’s relevant if you view the issue of control over one’s own body as more important. If that is the deciding factor then everything to do with a foetus is measured with respect to the mother and the mothers desire for it validates its life. Personally I don’t like the idea that you’re only worthwhile if someone else wants you.