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Abortion
This may surprise you, but I'm pro-life.
I just don't believe a human life begins at conception.
Comments
Obligatory:
Only when things have devolved into utter crap and burst into flames and the mods circle to lock the thread, then you will have my permission to post smug " I told you so!" macros
I was actually surprised that the thread didn't get any responses.
Then again, pretty much all of us here are veterans of internet arguments, so we're both experienced and jaded.
We've already had this exact thread on this very forum (where I believe I posted this same picture and you yelled at me almost identically). It avoided turning into a flamewar by sheer virtue of apathy because nobody wanted to risk a flamewar by saying much more than a very brief opinion, and because most of us are from a site that had fucking awful abortion wildfire threads and nobody's eager to touch the issue at all with a ten foot pole.
I think the thread that Bee referenced is here, in case anyone was wondering. It seemed pretty civil despite there being some complexity and disagreements in it, but your opinion may vary.
Derp, I totally forgot a thread about this already existed.
Holy fuck Sanosuke Sagara!
Wait, I made that thread?
I have issues with abortion.
However, I also recognize that it affects me far less than women and so I think the choice should be theirs.
What Malk said. I do think abortion is, to some extent, messing with life. At the same time, though, it can also be the lesser evil. Whatever the case may be, though, I'm certainly in favour of the legality of abortion and only ask that people weigh the choice carefully.
I see it as two choices. Ending a potential life, or introducing said life into a world that won't care for it in the slightest. Neither are very good.
Sanctity of life, bitches.
Personally, how okay I am with it depends on when it happens. I mean, before the brain is developed enough to sustain anything that can be considered thought, I can't really think of it as worse than using birth control. Later on it gets sketchier.
Yeah, I agree. When I've talked about this with people, I've said that the question shouldn't be when life begins, but instead when intelligence or sentience or whatever you want to call it begins.
A day-old embryo isn't capable of thought (at least, I don't see how it could be), so anybody telling me that it's a person would have a hard time convincing me. A 7-month-old fetus, on the other hand? It has a head, which has a brain in it, which suggests a mind, which IMHO means that if it isn't at the same level of intelligence as a newborn baby yet that it must at least be very close.
Also, if the mother decides to terminate the pregnancy, that in itself doesn't bother me as much as the way it's done. There's debate over whether a fetus can feel pain or not, but my thinking is it's best to err on the side of caution and assume that it can, and to end its life in a painless way.
What's the current approximate limit of how prematurely a baby can be born and still survive thanks to medical technology?
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Related: How should a person's age be defined? Should it be from when they were born? What about premature babies?
FWIW I think there are actually some non-western-European-based cultures that recognize conception as the beginning of life and actually consider a person to be 1 year old when they're born.
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Another topic: Let's say you outlaw abortion. What is the appropriate penalty for the crime of abortion? Does it exist, and if so, who should be penalized?
I'm not sure charging a doctor for murder and his patient--the mother--as an accomplice is a good idea.
I think a murder charge would be overkill too. I don't know how to answer, though, if the question is "Should there be some kind of penalty for late-term abortion and, if so, what?"
I think it would have to depend on the situation. Like "Is giving birth to this child going to present a risk to the mother?" Or "Is this a baby that will be able to live a healthy and happy life once it's born, or does it have some condition that's going to make its life short and painful?" Basically, what's the reason that the mother decided this was the only option? I think in a lot of cases we're talking about desperate people, and that desperation ought to be a mitigating factor even if it's decided that they are definitely doing something horribly wrong and unethical.
The question shouldn't be "do you support/oppose abortion?" The question should be "do you support declaring abortion legal/illegal?" Pretty much everyone agrees that abortion is something our society could do without, but you can definitely say that it's not as simple as "make it illegal and the problem will go away."
Um... not really, no. Or else you wouldn't have people, like... getting abortions.
I mean, in an ideal world, people would have access to proper education and contraception, unwanted pregnancies wouldn't occur, and abortion would be unnecessary. But that's just it. We don't live in an ideal world, abortion will continue to be seen as necessary by some, and trying to restrict it hasn't been shown to solve anything.
...I think that's the point I'm trying to make. I dunno. It's late, and I'm half-asleep anyway.
Agreeing with the sentiment that this is a mother's individual choice. Besides, there are enough peeps born into miserable circumstances as is: perhaps better to abort and adopt someone who lives in shitty circumstances.