Abortion

Dragonheart91 wrote:

Since when are a few cells "men". Conception is =/= to sentience. (Or whatever word you use.) Until sentience is achieved it's not a human regardless of any future potential.

Dude, I gave you a full out argument laid out very nicely so you can pick it apart and told you exactly what you had to deny. You didn't do any of that. It's a deductive argument. If you have a problem with it tell me which premise you deny, and why. 1, 2, or 3. You have to deny one of them. If I were to guess, I would say that "conception" and "created" are not the same to you.

Dragonheart91 wrote:

Also, I figured out the problem. Your just extremely sexist. Your whole argument is that when a woman has sex of any kind ever she should face all of the most extreme consequences. However, you never say ANYTHING about any of the men involved. They get off scott-free. (Only half joking. Although this may not be the reason for Jay's arguments, it's hard to deny how extremely sexist they are.)

I used to think you were smart. I'm starting to think you're just being a troll now. I mention women, but that doesn't exclude men. It's because it mostly concerns them. Seriously, ever since you "got a life" you've been a real douche bag. You no longer argue properly and just...troll.

Your "argument" has a large flaw in it. You automatically define "babies" as "men" without supporting it.

Babies are =/= to men until you prove it.

No I do. I'm saying that when they are "created" and when they are "conceived" are the same thing. Are you trying to tell me they're not "created" at conception and are "created" at some point afterwards, whether it be 3 months in, or 6 months or whatever? You trying to tell me they're not created until after that?

"Men" (No sexism) are "created" at conception. You, again never did what I told you - which was to deny one of my premises. I assume you deny number 2. Back it up now.

No, I'm saying that you have a fourth premise which you didn't state and THAT is the one I'm denying. Your fourth premise is that babies are equal to men. (I obviously mean the human race, not the gender. -And so does the DoI.-)


And the only reason I even brought up the sexism thing is because you kept saying that the people who have sex need to be punished for their actions or in your words "bear the consequences". But, the men see none of those consequences or at least MUCH less than the women. What it boiled down to from what I understood of your arguments was that men are free to go around and have sex with the only consequence being a slight possibility of financial "consequences", but women need to face dire consequences including 9 months of suffering, possibility of death, permanent damage to their bodies, and unknown amounts of emotional damage.

1. I believe in the Declaration of Independence.
2. When a baby is conceived, he is created.
3. The declaration says that all men are created equal, and they have the right to life.
4. A baby is the equivalent to "men" (Men is defined as the human race)
____________________________________________________________________________
Conclusion: A baby when conceived has the right to life.


So why is it that a baby not equal to men? Why is it that you're not part of the human race until a certain month into pregnancy? I was under the impression you're CREATED equal, and you're CREATED when you're conceived. If you're created...you're created as a human. Basically your argument is it's not human until a certain age? Semantics for a life & death situation? Seriously...

Dragonheart91 wrote:

And the only reason I even brought up the sexism thing is because you kept saying that the people who have sex need to be punished for their actions or in your words "bear the consequences". But, the men see none of those consequences or at least MUCH less than the women. What it boiled down to from what I understood of your arguments was that men are free to go around and have sex with the only consequence being a slight possibility of financial "consequences", but women need to face dire consequences including 9 months of suffering, possibility of death, permanent damage to their bodies, and unknown amounts of emotional damage.

Yes, because you failed to bring this up earlier, we're obviously sexist, and think women deserve all the punishment,

I think that yes, the female should be punished for their irresponsible behavior, (having sex and not wanting to have a baby). However, I do also believe that the MALE person "participating" should also be punished. However, the problem with this is that it's very hard to punish them.

In the old days, (Bible times), the punishment for having sex without being married, would be that you HAD to get married, especially if the women had a baby. Simple as that. They're both punished for their irresponsiblity, and now they have to bear it.

Thanks to human culture, we no longer have that system, and the men can just easily abandon the woman. There's nothing you can really do.

You only had to get married if you got caught.


Back to Jay's argument. It all comes back to sentience. Infants and even young children aren't sentient. Until they are, I don't consider them human.

Dragonheart91 wrote:

You only had to get married if you got caught.


Back to Jay's argument. It all comes back to sentience. Infants and even young children aren't sentient. Until they are, I don't consider them human.

Believing that doesn't make you badass, it just makes you cold.

I'm against abortion, but I'm for killing babies. Make the mother go through the pain of child birth and then snuff the life out of their newborn baby that they feel an immediate attachment to. That'll teach them to have irresponsible sex.

Seriously though, I think a sterilization policy should be put into effect, if stupid or genetically predisposed for any features that I, as supreme ruler of the world, deem unfit for survival in our species, people want to have babies they can adopt (we'll have large farms, we'll also use humans for power generation just like the machines did in the Matrix, this will also lower energy prices and make electric cars feasable). I call this Pythagorean Selection, as an analog to natural or artificial selection.

In case people can't see through the jokes, I'm against abortion. I think we should stop the problem at the source: the stupid people. Aborting a fetus is like saying "I ate too many cakes because they were so delicious and I got fat, now I'm going to sacrifice a fetus so I can be thin again so I can eat more cakes because they're so delicious" (If it were the case that sacrificing fetuses in fact made you lose weight in this hypothetical)

Okay... You guys are all devaluing human life. Actually, not quite, but you are doing something weird. You're turning the idea of having a baby from something beautiful, magical, and amazing to, and I quote, a form of Punishment (aka consequence). Do you really want to do that?

Don't get me wrong, (PLEASE READ/LISTEN) I agree that people shouldn't have sex unless they are ready for the possibility of having children as a result. Unfortunately, I don't think that many people completely understand that.

You're making as assumption that most people who have sex are well educated white individuals. Not true. I would imagine that several people who have sex early are not well educated (though they may still be white).

I agree, abortion is horrible. It is an awful, irresponsible thing that DOES devalue human life because it *MAY* treat the baby as something unwanted. But *punishing* people with a baby doesn't make any sense at all. It's devaluing life in a completely different way.

I don't understand the logic of it man.

I guess it's just a crappy situation altogether but it can't be changed by levying morals on others. Our culture needs education and a respect for human life.

Btw, why is going to war and killing other humans in that condition different than killing a child. Are you really going to say that other innocent citizens who are fully developed are worth less than fetuses? They are neither more or less important - but if you can answer this question off your moral high horse then I am more than willing to listen.

And please, DEAR GOD, don't tell me that those people aren't innocent because they've sinned. Technically, babies have original sin according to certain sects of Christianity. Ugh the weirdness of this topic depresses me.

@ Dragon - You refuse to believe a fetus is a child even though I give you a definition from a credible source, and then have nothing to back YOUR claim up. That's called willful ignorance. You deny something, great we're off to a start - but then you have no reason to back up your reason for denying and merely say "you have a different definition". That's like being up for a murder case, and then saying "I have a different definition of murder, you can't throw me in jail !" That doesn't convince anyone unless they also believe in this "different definition of murder".

@ Pyth - O, if only we could have a dictator running things. That way people would even be able to feel better when something they didn't like happened anyway. They could rationalize and say "If only we didn't have a dictator". Shame it's heavily frowned upon. Dictators and what not. They all have such a bad rep of being power hungry, and overlords, and in general bad people.

@Aqua - ...I'll go through this paragraph by paragraph since you deserve an actual response.

AquaAscension wrote:

Okay... You guys are all devaluing human life. Actually, not quite, but you are doing something weird. You're turning the idea of having a baby from something beautiful, magical, and amazing to, and I quote, a form of Punishment (aka consequence). Do you really want to do that?

That's not what (at least I) am trying to get at. Having a child is a magical thing. However, the only person on the other side that's truely arguing is Dragon, and he's cold blooded (Pun FULLY intended. Cause he's a Dragon...GET IT!!!??!?). I have to break it down in to a logical form for him, because emotion doesn't cut it with him...Especially when he doesn't even think it's a human.

AquaAscension wrote:

Don't get me wrong, (PLEASE READ/LISTEN) I agree that people shouldn't have sex unless they are ready for the possibility of having children as a result. Unfortunately, I don't think that many people completely understand that.

You're right. However, just because someone is ignorant doesn't mean they should be given the right to continuously make the mistake, to "fix" their "mistake" without anything to learn from it. Just because a baby isn't wanted doesn't mean it makes the lives of the parents who have it miserable. Sometimes they DO get married and have it and the love them. That doesn't so much become a possibility when you just give them the potential to get rid of their "problem".

AquaAscension wrote:

You're making as assumption that most people who have sex are well educated white individuals. Not true. I would imagine that several people who have sex early are not well educated (though they may still be white).

No. Most people who have abortions are actually Latinos and blacks. However, that's a different issue. They NEED to become more educated, as sadly - a lot of them still live in areas where education isn't on par with the rest of America. But you do have to start at the source. Educating them first, while still keeping abortion clinics still up and running...well they're still going to have abortions then.

AquaAscnesion wrote:

I agree, abortion is horrible. It is an awful, irresponsible thing that DOES devalue human life because it *MAY* treat the baby as something unwanted. But *punishing* people with a baby doesn't make any sense at all. It's devaluing life in a completely different way.

I used the word consequence for a reason. Not punishment. Consequence has no negative connotation. You make the assumption that, no matter what having the baby when they originally don't want it, will mean they will continue to not want it. That's the amazing thing about humans. To deal with something that gives you stress you have two options to relieve the stress. Deal with the stress itself, or change your views on it. For example you receive a bad grade on a test. You can either change the stress by saying "For the next one I'm going to study really hard" or you can change your views by saying "Grades really aren't that important, it was an unfair test anyway." Now relating this back to the state of the parents....Even though they many have a "mistake child" if abortion clinics are removed, they no longer can deal with the "stress" directly (I.E Abort the child). They either have to continue to be stressed, or they - and this happens a lot - change their opinion. They think... maybe it won't be so bad, maybe JUST maybe we can love this child..And if not, we can give it up for adoption so it doesn't go unloved. Granted, this is ideal - and there are people who will just remain stressed, or try to do back alley abortions - however when you look into it - those numbers are pretty low. Humans have self-defense mechanisms...they'll use them. Even beyond that, think about how much pain and suffering ANY women has to go through to get a baby. If any man felt that much pain they would want to kill the source of it...but once that baby comes out, there's an atmosphere of warmth and love. Thats an (arguably) evolutionary trait that women have...To not want to kill their babies once they see them. To love them...I'd say the majority of people have this.

AquaAscension wrote:

I don't understand the logic of it man.

I'm sorry if I made it more cold-hearted than it really is. But...as an English Major you should know, that you have to "know your audience" and at the time - my audience was a logical, coldhearted person. Look at the tone change between this post and my last ones...

AquaAscnesion wrote:

I guess it's just a crappy situation altogether but it can't be changed by levying morals on others. Our culture needs education and a respect for human life.

Indeed. However...that should come, I think, afterwards. That's a long term solution, and sometimes you need a "quick fix" to deal with the immediate situation. You don't put money into your pension when you haven't payed the electricity bill yet.

AquaAsension wrote:

Btw, why is going to war and killing other humans in that condition different than killing a child. Are you really going to say that other innocent citizens who are fully developed are worth less than fetuses? They are neither more or less important - but if you can answer this question off your moral high horse then I am more than willing to listen.

What are you referring to here? I don't think you should attack unless you're attacked first. Once someone kills someone else, they give up their rights to live. But if they haven't killed anyone, they should keep their right to live.

AquaAscnesion wrote:

And please, DEAR GOD, don't tell me that those people aren't innocent because they've sinned. Technically, babies have original sin according to certain sects of Christianity. Ugh the weirdness of this topic depresses me.

Not Christian. Again, not sure what you're referring to. And yes, this topic is quite depressing.

Also, sorry for the wall-o-text.

And although I argue the way I do for the rights and freedoms of women to be upheld, I would never want a "mistake" of mine to be aborted. There is a difference between what I believe people have the right to do with their own bodies, and what I would do with mine. (Or the woman obviously.)

It's the same thing as gay people. They aren't hurting you, yet you want to interfere with what they want to do with their own bodies. I find the concept of being gay mildly disgusting myself, but that doesn't mean other people don't deserve the freedom to choose their own course in life.


I'm for abortion because of two reasons.

#1 People are free to do what they want with their own bodies as long as they aren't hurting anyone else.
#2 Children are not sentient and therefore do not have value until somewhere around the 7-10 year old period. (The potential for a sentient being could just keep being followed back until you get like the Catholics where you believe you MUST have UNPROTECTED and as many children as possible, because your killing children otherwise.)

Dragonheart91 wrote:

#1 People are free to do what they want with their own bodies as long as they aren't hurting anyone else.

They are hurting someone else though. The innocent child.

[quote="Dragonheart91]#2 Children are not sentient and therefore do not have value until somewhere around the 7-10 year old period.[/quote]

You do the same thing over and over and over and over again. Just because you SAY they're not sentient doesn't mean they aren't. Like I've said countless times, I've defined it and you've done nothing besides say "I just don't think they are with no reasoning." Like I said towards Aqua, people have 2 courses of action to deal with something. Either change the way they think about something, or change what's happening. You just are lying to yourself by saying "I don't think they're humans, or have any worth" because you just don't want to deal with the actual issue. By saying they're not human you can feel less guilty about them being killed, and for you supporting it. Again, I continuously ask you to give me good reason to believe that it is not a human being. It's been CREATED already. It's not like having sex with a condom, because the egg and the sperm haven't made a baby yet. That's a different argument all together. It's already CREATED, and having been CREATED, it has damn rights. You don't just give women (or men) the right to kill a baby because they didn't want it.

Get over your definitions. You know what I'm talking about even if I use the wrong word.

You accuse me of having preconceptions and not being willing to yield, but your just as bad. You conduct the whole argument as though the following assumptions of yours were set in stone:

#1 Sentience starts at conception.
#2 Babies have rights because they were created through an avoidable act.
#3 Women must be given the right to "kill" their babies. (Like you can stop them?)
#4 Having sex deserves consequences. (Seriously? You must be a virgin to make arguments like that.)
(I had others, but I mis-clicked and lost my post. Dang it!)


You've not put forward any evidence for your claims anymore than I have. What's worse, you don't even make them as an argument; you just ASSUME that your right and we agree with you.

Dragonheart91 wrote:

#4 Having sex deserves consequences. (Seriously? You must be a virgin to make arguments like that.)

That looks like a big straw man and a little against the person to me.

Having sex DOES have consequences, hell I could argue that most people living in this world are not sentient and therefore should be subject to the possibility of abortion. The fact that they have the potential to ascend above what you consider sub-humanity and attain sentience at some point should be enough for you to consider that maybe they should be given an equal opportunity to continue living and maybe impress you at some time in the distant future.

I'm pretty sure if humans wouldn't kill any animals then some of them would eventually evolve into something sentient.

Belial wrote:

I'm pretty sure if humans wouldn't kill any animals then some of them would eventually evolve into something sentient.

Um, no. What about in the "dinosaur" days, where there were hardly, (if any), people around? It's not just humans killing them; they fight and kill each other, as well, if you didn't notice,

Im not against it ...

1) Women are very young now days and it ruins their lives

2) MEXICANS!!!

3) what i mean by 2...is mexicans take jobs...so do MORE americans

4) we are in debt which means...more people MORE DEBT =D

5) WE DONT HAVE A GOOD SPACE PROGRAM TO GO TO OTHER PLANETS YET NOT ENOUGH ROOM FOR MORE PPL BY ALL MEANS ABORT YOUR CHILD =D

6) YOUR CHILD WILL BE A COCK JUGGLING THUNDER CUNT IF YOU ARE UNGDER THE AGE OF 18 =O

Bartimaeus wrote:

Belial wrote:

I'm pretty sure if humans wouldn't kill any animals then some of them would eventually evolve into something sentient.

Um, no. What about in the "dinosaur" days, where there were hardly, (if any), people around? It's not just humans killing them; they fight and kill each other, as well, if you didn't notice,

Didn't we evloe from APES or gorrilas or some shit?

killll wrote:

Im not against it ...

1) Women are very young now days and it ruins their lives

2) MEXICANS!!!

3) what i mean by 2...is mexicans take jobs...so do MORE americans

4) we are in debt which means...more people MORE DEBT =D

5) WE DONT HAVE A GOOD SPACE PROGRAM TO GO TO OTHER PLANETS YET NOT ENOUGH ROOM FOR MORE PPL BY ALL MEANS ABORT YOUR CHILD =D

6) YOUR CHILD WILL BE A COCK JUGGLING THUNDER CUNT IF YOU ARE UNGDER THE AGE OF 18 =O

I lol-ed IRL looking at this post.

1. No, they ruin THEIR lives.

2. Racist.

3. You made another number for explaining number 2?

4. More people =/= more debt.

5. We don't need to abort more, we need to be more responsible.

6. LAL WAT

People aren't going to be more responsible, about 75% - 90% of the population are morons more so under the effect of hormones. Abortion is a good way to avoid overpopulation (Murderers and disease help a bit too). Without abortion every country in the world would be like China.

Dinosaurs (And any other animal, exept human) kill for food or protection, humans kill animals for a lot or reasons and most aren't fair for the animals. Having an abortion does less harm then killing animals for fun.

Quote :

Um, no. What about in the "dinosaur" days, where there were hardly, (if any), people around? It's not just humans killing them; they fight and kill each other, as well, if you didn't notice, Wink

The animal population is decreasing quite fast and that slows down evolution. Human will probably be extinct before any animal would achieve any form of sentience though.

Belial wrote:

People aren't going to be more responsible, about 75% - 90% of the population are morons more so under the effect of hormones. Abortion is a good way to avoid overpopulation (Murderers and disease help a bit too). Without abortion every country in the world would be like China.

Dinosaurs (And any other animal, exept human) kill for food or protection, humans kill animals for a lot or reasons and most aren't fair for the animals. Having an abortion does less harm then killing animals for fun.

Quote :

Um, no. What about in the "dinosaur" days, where there were hardly, (if any), people around? It's not just humans killing them; they fight and kill each other, as well, if you didn't notice, Wink

The animal population is decreasing quite fast and that slows down evolution. Human will probably be extinct before any animal would achieve any form of sentience though.

Assuming "sentience" is possible, which, I don't believe it is.

Quote :

Assuming "sentience" is possible, which, I don't believe it is.

Humans are sentient... Self-awareness is a large part of sentience and a fetus isn't self-aware.

Belial wrote:

Quote :

Assuming "sentience" is possible, which, I don't believe it is.

Humans are sentient... Self-awareness is a large part of sentience and a fetus isn't self-aware.

I meant for something besides humans, and Jay.J has already argued upon the latter part of your post, so I don't see the point mentioning it,

Quote :

I meant for something besides humans, and Jay.J has already argued upon the latter part of your post, so I don't see the point mentioning it, Smile

I'm pretty sure something will develope sentience but that will take billions of years (Possible less).

Actually Jay.J's just said that a fetus is sentience. Also a fetus gains sentience a month (Possible a bit sooner). Before that it doesn't have a fully developed nervous system or brain and because of that it doesn't feel or think. We don't call a seed a tree because it has the potential to become a tree and sperm has the potential to become a baby eventually but we don't define it as a human.

So, I live in Colorado. No that important. However, we did have a bill on the last presidential election come up which tried to redefine a fertilized egg as "human."

The consequence of this would have been that certain birth control pills would be made illegal. Why? Because birth control pills stop a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus and developing, people who take that form of birth control would be murderers. Well, that does limit choice. AKA you may be supporting a form of abortion if you support the right to take "The Pill."

And about the war thing: let's just take Afghanistan for example. They deserved to get bombed because they certainly supported terror movements.

Still war: Germany definitely because many were complicit in causing the holocaust and other atrocities... but near the end not so much, but still, they deserved to die because of all the turmoil they caused by not paying attention to or standing up to Hitler.

Last War: Iraq ummm Saddam Hussein deserved to be take out of power. He killed many people in cold blood (haha dragon) and so did several members of his cabinet. His population, however, was not quite as complicit in that terror, destruction, or death. We've killed several million innocent Iraqi's (by we I mean America, Canada is safe). So are you saying that if a country attacks, then every single person loses his/her right to life? If you are saying that these innocent humans have the right to life but that right will casually be ignored in cases where it's convenient then I don't understand. The logic breaks down.

I.e. if you kill innocent people from other countries because its convenient, because their country went to war without the approval of all citizens, then you seem to be drawing a very zig-zagged line through the issue of "right to life."

The counter arguments:
- Those people aren't innocent, they are complicit in some way.
- Babies don't have a choice - they got thrown into the mix

I think at this point I'll be arguing more for right to life than abortion, but that's okay.

See, when two countries go to war, it's really just adults fucking each other without any regard to the children (citizens) and hey if a few die in the process, then all's fair in love and war so whatever. All good. No harm, they lived in the "evil" country anyway so they deserved to die. Simply by being where they were they deserved to die. Haha and you think that a baby is different because it was created on the spot? LOL. Oh man that's so silly. I'd argue that most of these foreign devils are created on the spot in our imaginations because we don't care enough to learn about them. They may have existed before, but we didn't know so it is no harm at all. Haha people being stupid and living where there's oil or other pecuniary interests. Poor bastards let's nuke 'em all and take their shit woot!

Yeah, I know that there is a big difference between babies and others, but I don't think that we can say that everyone has a right to life based on the Declaration of Independence and only protect that right for certain groups. Inalienable rights - as in won't go away because they have done something... think about it. Inalienable means what it means. Don't try to argue otherwise especially since the DoI doesn't have any mitigating circumstances written in. Granted, you can try to argue them, but to use the DoI and then change it is meh.

I do think everyone has the right to life. Anyhow, this is the last post from me most likely on this subject.

Oh, lastly, Jay, no, you didn't use the term "punishment" but others have.

So, just yesterday I witnessed an underage (19) year old give birth. Okay, I was not in the room because she's a friend of a friend, but still. They I think made the right choice to keep it, but you have to consider all the outside influences that a person has. Parents don't want it: this case the parents were happy to have a new child. The parents can't support it: again, these "kids" for all intents and purposes have much support from the parents. I support the right to life, I really do, but what I support more is education so that people no longer have "mistakes." Until that day comes, I think that abortions need to stay legalized but drastically change.

If someone wants one, it should be proven that it is needed first. Then, the person should be required to get counseling and be given resources to make sure that they don't have to. Lastly, they should be informed about adoption and other sources.

Lastly, I think that only an incredibly cold woman would view an abortion as something trivial. I think that most people understand abortion equates to killing and that this is not an easy thing to just forget about and move on from. I mean how many of you know people who've gotten an abortion? Maybe you know some because they let you know about it or whatever, but I imagine that the great majority of women don't go around saying that they had an abortion because of not only the "murderess" status that the woman gets but also the stigma that surrounds having sex. So... seriously... fuck you guys for trying to make this topic so god damned clear cut and easy. Seriously? Who gave you the right to say "always" - not even the mother fucking pope should have that right. Ugh I'm done with this it pisses me off too damn much looking at the ignorance and coldness on both sides of the argument.

Tl; dr: The topic is way more complicated than you think.
Fuck you for making it so god damn simple.
Stop pretending you know everything and thinking that everything is simple and clear cut.
Go out and live and stop theorizing because theorizing does shit for application
I'm done with this topic because it pisses me off so much.

*The "fuck you" goes for both sides of the argument.