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58 comments
Giving birth is always potentially life-threatening, and even then it can result in or worsen long-term debilitating health problems. Even if neither of these were the case, the right to bodily autonomy dictates that no one should legally have to sacrifice or risk their own health for another, even if it were to save the life of a living relative. Therefore, no one should have to do this for a fetus, which before the safe point for abortion cannot think or feel.
So avoiding pregnancy is probably the best option for someone like you. After conception though, there is already another life to consider. Killing an innocent life that you helped to create because you are scared of potential health risks is wrong. The baby is not a violator. The baby didn't ask to be created. The baby should be protected until birth. Then you can choose whether or not to be his/her mother.
Yeah I agree, if giving birth is dangerous then avoid putting yourself in that position. It’s not like cancer or some other terminal illness that cannot be prevented.
Just because pregnancy can be prevented, doesn't give any credence to the idea that abortion is wrong.
"Killing an innocent life that you helped to create because you are scared of potential health risks is wrong."
-The "innocent life" is not a person, and doesn't have conscious ,and thus, there is no victim, thus saying it's wrong, is merely subjective.
"The baby is not a violator."
-Calling it a "baby", is a false equivalency fallacy, and an appeal to emotion fallacy.
There are so many other reasons why a pregnant person may choose to have an abortion, all of which are entirely valid, as the person carrying the infant should be priority; it is their body so only they can decide what to do with it.
For example, the state of the pregnant person's mental health should be taken into account- just because their life is not threatened, doesn't mean their state of mind, for example, is not at risk.
An example of this would be if the pregnant person could not afford to raise a child- surely it would be better to have an abortion than risk both parent and child's happiness by bringing a baby into the world who would change that, and as a result, have a more difficult life themselves, living in poverty (in this example- there are many other instances of pregnancy/birth impacting well-being).
If abortion was illegal unless the pregnant person's life was in danger, there would also be an increase in back-street abortions, which are life-threatening in themselves.
Currently, in places where abortion is illegal, many turn to these dangerous illegal clinics, which can be a very traumatic experience as well as physically unsafe. So, if a law was in place making abortions were illegal unless the pregnant person's life was in danger, it would be likely that their life would be in even more danger.
Finally, with this law, there would be much confusion and loop holes regarding what counts as a life in danger- would the only pregnant person's physical health be taken into account, or would their mental state be factored into it also (e.g. depression due to pregnancy/birth resulting in suicide)?
The pregnant person should be allowed to make their own decisions, and so should be trusted if they think that having a baby would make the situation harder for both of them.
I completely agree. Also, in the case of rape, it would be completely lacking in compassion to deny a pregnant person the right to abortion.
But what about compassion on the unborn? If someone has become a victim of rape, why make another victim?
What role does the Father have in this? The child is just as much his as is hers.
"It's just a clump of cells"
-A slightly larger clump of cells
-A slightly larger clump of cells that also has a conscience and individual thought and bodily autonomy
What about a slightly larger clump of cells that doesn't have a conscience and individual thought and bodily autonomy?
Those traits are what distinguish a person from a mere object.
So a severely autistic or mentally handicapped person is a mere object? Are plants not alive?
If they are incapable of consciousness, then they are not a person. Plants are alive, but they aren't people either.
And at what stage does consciousness develop? Is it an abortion before then and murder afterwards? Is someone in a vegetative state, who is without consciousness, not a person?
Consciousness does not develop before the third trimester. It's an abortion if the fetus is terminated before birth. It's murder if it's unlawful, if the fetus is a person, and if it's malicious. No, somebody in a vegetative state is not a person.
So if a baby is killed before birth but after the third trimester, is it murder or abortion? How are you defining malicious? I'd say if a mother couldn't be bothered with carrying through the pregnancy she's ending a human life just because she's lazy. Is that malicious? If we kill someone in a vegetative state is that not murder? If not, then what? Are they now an object?
There are no babies killed before birth, and if a fetus is killed before birth, then it's an abortion. Once again, it's only murder if it's unlawful, the killing of a person, and malicious. Malicious meaning characterized by malice; intending or intended to do harm. No, being lazy is not malicious. Again, killing somebody in a vegetative state is not murder, because that "somebody" is no longer a person, they are merely an object.
But how can it be an abortion after the third trimester when, by your own definition, that’s now a human being and not an object? Is it an object with conciousness? How can it be abortion 1 minute before birth yet murder 1 minute after? The baby’s still the same, it’s just travelled. What about premature births? If babies can survive them why is birth the defining moment they become human? You need to stay consistent. Also, people in vegetative states can recover, are they people, then objects, then people again? Frankly I think that’s a horrible thing to say
If you stop a pregnancy before birth, it's an abortion, period. I don't know to what extent 3rd trimester fetuses have consciousness, but for sure it's not meaningful consciousness. No, a fetus 1 minute before birth is not the same as a baby. There is a whole host of biological differences between the two. The birthing process kick starts many of the fetus's life support systems, like the respiratory system, the digestive system, immune system, and the fetus is removed from it's natural fetal sedative state. Birth is not the defining moment when a fetus becomes human. Fetuses were always part of the human genus. Embryos, zygotes, sperm were always human. Nothing I've said is inconsistent. Obviously, a coma patient that's expected to recover, is not a vegetable. If you killed a coma patient that was expected to recover, you would be killing a person, which would likely be a violation of that person's will. You can say that's a horrible thing, but I never said that. By the way, this website is for arguments, not a bunch of questions. If you don't have any actual arguments, then with all due respect, you're in the wrong place.
I'm asking you all these questions because I genuinely don't understand your point of view. Premature births can and do happen proving that human life begins before the birthing process. People can recover from vegetative states. How is it murder to kill someone who can recover from a coma yet abortion to kill someone who can survive a premature birth? How are you defining meaningful conciousness? You're just trying to justify your position to yourself, all conciousness needs life. If stopping a pregnancy before birth is an abortion why can the legal system charge you with the murder of an unborn child? Your argument doesn't make sense
Now, if we look at human life begins at conception there's a clearer picture. Babies need a support system just like people in comas, babies grow and fulfill the characteristics of living things. If you aren't happy calling abortion murder will you admit that it's killing? Because you're ending a human life, regardless of which phase of development it's in
THIS WEBSITE IS FOR ARGUMENTS, NOT ASKING A BUNCH OF QUESTIONS. If you are having trouble understanding this, then I suggest you go to the library, and take out some books on arguing, reasoning, and logic.
I have made arguments, your reasoning is just poor. Life begins at inception and abortion is killing an unborn human. No amount of mental hopscotch or uppercase whining can change that. This is why stillborn births or miscarriages are so tragic. I'd ask you why you think they're so tragic but that would just upset you again.
We appreciate this is a highly emotive topic, but sometimes the best approach is to agree to disagree.
Please take a look at the Rules of Parlia - we are not in the business of changing people's minds so much as understanding how we think.
Why are you telling me this when he wrote the same comment 4 times?
We feel your questions verge on 'needling'.
user0987's position seems clear to us.
Well it isn't to me, I don't understand how killing a coma patient is murder yet killing a foetus isn't
Ignore the ParliaMod. He/she always stick up for the liberal/lefty world view and gives a hard time to anyone else. Everything you said was spot on and totally factual. Keep going lad.
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That may belong to a rapist
It's short and simple: do not make a choice illegal. If you, as a woman, believe that abortion is wrong, do not get an abortion. And no one should shame you for this decision. However, the same goes for women who wish to have an abortion. If they are not financially or personally ready to raise a child, then they can choose not to. Let's not decide what's best for one another. The only issue I see with abortion being legal is if it is used as a primary birth control method rather than condoms/IUD/birth control pills.
Should murder be illegal as a choice?
Abortion is does not kill a person, it is not unlawful, and it's not malicious., therefore, abortion is not murder.
Life sucks. Why make it worse for someone by bringing them into a world where even their parents don't want them. Abortion is a mercy killing.
I believe that suicide rates would be a lot higher if people agreed with you.
And if you claim to have that right for someone else, what keeps someone else from claiming that right for you? Suppose your spouse decides to leave you, but kills you first as a mercy, for example. Suppose you have a difficult medical diagnosis and the doctor shoots you instead of telling you and letting you make up your own mind.
The mercy killing excuse cannot be justified.
I have the cognative ability and worldy understanding to make that decision for myself. A foetus does not. Besides, if someone was to put me out of my misery then that would only perpetuate heartache and misery throughout those who love me. It would cause more misery than it would solve and where would that end? You wanna kill all the people who love me? Well what about the people who love them? That mindset would see the world eradicated in less than a year.
It's one thing to take a foetuses life, it's quite another to take a fully formed humans.
Also, where I'm from suicide is the biggest cause of death amoungst young people. How much higher do those rates need to be for you to accept that life is suffering?
So it's okay to mercy kill someone who is alone. Maybe homeless people should be mercy killed?
You're denying that unborn child the opportunity to love and be loved. You're denying the world the chance to be blessed by that individual's talents and skills. You're depriving an innocent and completely vulnerable individual of every chance under the sun. And in so doing you are sending a terrible message to the rest of the world, that you believe some people's lives are not worth living.
This sort of thing only increases the despair of poverty and affirms people grappling with depression and suicidal thoughts. You are not just killing one person, you're killing hope for thousands.
I'm not denying the unborn child anything.
That child will never develop the understanding to know what it's missing out on. Do you think the atoms that float around us care that they missed out on becoming a human? No, they have no thought or cognition. Therefore the unborn child will not be missing out on anything by being aborted.
If it's not aborted then it will suffer a life of pain, grief, heartache, illness, war, draught and all the other things associated with life alongside the fact that it's born to parents that never even wanted it. How can anyone condone such an act? Do you think the joys of life outweigh the pains?
As for those who are alone, they have the cognitive ability to decide for themselves if they want to continue or not and for that matter, I think suicide should be legal.
For those who cannot make that decision (ie: they're in a coma, they're braindead, they've suffered trauma which damages their cognition to a point beyone repair) I fully support euthanasia.
Surely the only people who would find this controversial are people who want to perpetuate suffering, right?
You're denying the unborn child to be born
"unborn child" is an oxymoron, and an appeal to emotion. It's not a child, it's a fetus, and it's not a person, and thus nobody's rights are being violated, hurt, or being forced to do anything against their will. There is no victim.
Well you're entitled to your wrong opinion.
Look, life begins before birth. An egg cell is a living organism, a sperm cell is a living organism. The question is, when do they become human.
Well at the moment of conception all that persons blueprints are laid out.
The embryo already has a pre determined eye colour, skin colour, predisposition to being fat/thin, tall/short, smart/thick. A life becomes a human life at the moment of conception.
Calling it a child may be a stretch, it's more vulnerable than a child or even a baby. But it is most certainly a human. A person.
You can assert my opinion is wrong, but unless you can actually demonstrate that claim to be true, it's an unwarranted assertion. The egg, sperm, fetus, etc., of human parents, were never not part of the human species. It's a fetus at conception, not a person, and a garage full of parts, is not a car. Vulnerability does not give any credence to the idea that abortion should be banned.
I believe that unless giving birth will cause significant harm to a woman's body or the woman has been forced against her own will, abortion should be illegal. Human life begins at conception, therefore aborting a fetus is murder.
Saying "human life begins at conception, therefore aborting a fetus is murder", is a non-sequitur. Just because something is human, or when that human life begins, doesn't give any credence to the idea abortion is wrong.
That doesn't make any sense, are you suggesting murder isn't wrong?
No, I'm saying murder is not dependent on when human life beings, therefore, saying it's murder because of that, is fallacious.
You still aren't making any sense, can you dumb it down?
I don't know how to explain it any more simply than that.
The beginning of "life" is relevant as it marks the starting point wherein a living being has human rights (be they normative or legal): such as the right to life.
While you might be able to technically argue that abortion is not "murder" because of the current legal definition (in certain areas anyway), it ought be obvious that opponents of abortion are, in fact, arguing that an unborn human fetus has the right to life.
In other words, they are arguing that abortion is [morally synonymous with] murder.
If you genuinely did not realize that , I suppose my comment would end here.
But it seems more likely that you're implying that morality is defined by government, and abortion is not objectionable because it is legal in most US jurisdictions.
I would hope that we don't have to have a discussion about why that perspective is not only wrong, but dangerous. (Bear in mind the now-viewed-as-horrendous atrocities committed throughout history that were deemed "legal" by the relevant governing authorities of their time.)
Fun fact: There is legal precedent in the US that the murderer of a pregnant woman can be held liable for the murder of not only the woman, but her unborn child as well. So the notion that an unborn child has the right to life isn't even a purely moral argument.
Legal rights are irrelevant to whether something should be legal or not, and "normative" rights as you call them, are subjective, and thus irrelevant to the scope of this discussion. No, I have not implied morals are defined by government, and my arguments for abortion are philosophical. The fact that murders of pregnant women can be counted as double murders, only demonstrates the double standards of the law, and thus, does nothing to support the 'right to life' of fetuses. The Supreme court has clearly ruled that the 'right to life' clause in the U.S. Constitution, does not apply to fetuses.
if abortion is murder, so is cutting off a braindead person’s life support
Would you be in favour of abortion being illegal if cutting off life support is too?
Abortion is quite obviously murder but I understand why people chose not to believe it. Carrying around the guilt from murder would be too much for me to handle so I can see why people would rather refuse to accept what is quite obviously going on. Millions of murderers across the world would have to face up the fact that they chose convenience over the life of an innocent child and they can't face up to it.
"Abortion is quite obviously murder"
-This is an appeal to self-evident truth fallacy.
So the victims of rape (children) have to be forced to give birth...just think of putting a 13 year old INNOCENT child through labor.
Abortion should be illegal in every case, without exception - even if a physician is of the opinion that the mother's life is "in danger," that is never justification for the slaughter of a human life, especially an innocent child. Abortion is always murder, and it is always morally evil. The government has a duty to protect life and liberty, and therefore Abortion should be illegal in every case, just like murder. Equal protection under the law for all human, born or pre-born.
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