Why doesn't someone make this a poll so that people can vote on without other people having to know who is Pro Coice or Pro Life. You can argue all day and not change anybodies mind. We are all different and we are entitled to our opinions. You can't change mine and I can't change yours.
So no need for debate, no need to learn or question, no need to think just accept your prejudices. People are not born with a set of ideas they are filled with them, some are bad and some good some are neither but in my view none should just be accepted without question.
Not only do we not have the right, but I also don't want the responsibility. When you succeed in changing someone's mind about an important life decision, or forcing them to handle it differently by passing a law, it makes you partially responsible (morally) for how things turn out for them. Why would anyone be quick to take that on? If someone asked me if she should get an abortion or not, I would only consider answering the question if I knew her very well personally, and knew all the details of her situation. And even then, I might decline to give a specific answer. I would much prefer that she thoroughly research the issue (with my help, if needed) and reach a decision on her own. When people are so adamant in their advice on this, it makes me wonder if they have ever changed their minds about anything important before. If you have changed your mind in the past, it could happen again, which means you could be wrong about something right now. It's a humbling thing to think about. It takes a big ego to tell everyone else how to live. The very fact that we are still debating this after all these years means something to me. If it was possible to completely figure this out and reach a consensus, it would have been done a long time ago. It's always going to be a murky issue with two distinct sides. The trick is figuring out how to exchange ideas on this subject without it quickly descending into raw emotion. It doesn't happen often. That's why I'm generally not willing to discuss it in real life. This thread has had a few good moments, but most of it has been pretty awful. I hope a few people will be able to read through it and see beyond the emotional debris.
____________________________________________________________ You're right and well said . This debate will and has raged on forever . No one is going to changes anyone's mind , or their beliefs . Everyone is entitled to their own opinion . And should let others have theirs . For the record , i don't believe in abortion . Yet who am I , to tell others what they should , or should not do . In the end it's between the woman and whatever God she worships or doesn't , whatever . It's not for me to judge , scream , bitch , condemn , condone or get involved in . If the state offers it and it's legal . Then it's the woman's choice . Do I agree with it ? No , but it's none of my business either ! And this thread and "argument "is moot , and a waste of energy and emotion . We live in a selfish society , where most refuse to take any personal responsibility for their own actions . Most look to take the path of least resistance . And whose only care is immediate gratification , and own self serving interests and pursuits . This debate is a symptom , not the cause . The cause is a country in rapid social, moral , ethical and spiritual decline . With no values ,self constraint , standards or common sense . And the big old world keeps on spinning . None of us are going to change it, or stop it . We are just along for the ride. So enjoy it while we can , before the music stops .
I don't need to debate you. I don't care what your choice is and you don't know my choice. If I wanted your opinion on the matter I might look back to see what it was, if you posted it. I haven't looked because I don't care what you think about the matter. So if you are so smart what are my pedjudices.
I have changed my mind on some pretty big things in my life. My parents were raised in the Amish church and joined a Mennonite church when I was about 2 years old, but my dad was steeped in Amish lore for so long it was never leaving. He is very bullheaded and nobody can tell him anything. (Yes, apples fall right under the tree.) When I was growing up I was taught that I had to be good enough to go to heaven, and if I sinned I had to confess it or I would go to hell. When I turned 16 a friend who had escaped from the communist government in Romania gave me a book by Watchman Nee called "The Normal Christian Life". As I read it, Nee outlined the Biblical plan for salvation, saved by grace through faith in Christ. The difference in the two concepts is astronomical; saved by living under the law versus saved by grace. As I studied the book and my Bible I saw that Nee was right, and I ended up leaving the church of my fathers. Of course this was also influenced by my meeting a gentile woman when I was about 20. So yes, some people do change their minds on very important philosophies when logical arguments are presented in a fashion that can be understood. The problem with an anonymous internet forum is that people don't treat others with respect so they end up looking like fools and their points, however well presented, are thrown out with the dishwater. Plus, the most popular view gets more exposure, especially when people are afraid of posting their views because they are not popular and they might get a red rep, so people reading through later assume the most popular view is the right one. I am not one to start a controversial thread, but if somebody else does I am damn sure going to post my unpopular viewpoint on it. The main difference I see and I can live with is that my philosophy is life starts at conception, and other people say it starts at birth. I was thinking about it last night, and if my wife got raped and became pregnant I would raise and love that child as my own. I can't think of any reason not to. So next time I sign up for a forum I guess the moniker "HardCore" would fit.
You must not have actualluy read my post. I answered your question and explained why most of the rest of this post is wrong. Maybe I should elaborate.
I have the potential to go postal and kill 485 people. Do you think I should be found guilty and executed for that potential? Funny, I have never been on the news for my potential to kill people, yet when the Columbine massacre happened it was all over the news for 3 days. Potential is the same as nothing. It always amuses me when a kid gets called into the office and told he has lots of potential. That means he isn't doing anything. Actually doing something means a million times more than the word "potential."
A life is a life and once it's created it is not our duty to get kill. Instead we shall be glad to have an addition to our population and we will have more people to love and possibly join us!
Potential in this instance means probable lifespan. There is no way of determining which individual will survive and to what stage of development. It is and illusion that lives can be saved. Fertilization is not assured. Proper environmental conditions, are not assured. You can save the baby and it dies an hour after birth. Morality is never just to everyone, nature is. I by no means am saying that we should have no respect for life, but that we do not exercise the kind of control we imagine, over whether each other lives or dies. As a matter of fact desperate acts come from people who for whatever reason find themselves in desperate circumstances. I don't know if there is a statistic on mortality rates that includes abortion and the relative effect it has on the numbers.
As of October 31st there will be 7 billion people on Earth(no one knows exactly when we hit 7 billion, the UN is just making its best rounded estimate), with an estimated 9 billion by 2050. The Earth's resources are already strained as hell, especially due to a sheer amount of waste among the richest nations. 20% of the the Earth uses 80% of its resources, the other 80% of the population are growing quicker not only in population, but in their own economies and consumption of resources, a rate current technology cannot sustain. Access to to basic things like food and water is becoming strained even in first world nations. The waste is a shame though, 5 course meals might not be an option for everyone on the planet, but there is more than enough food to make sure everyone at least doesn't go hungry. Anyone who's ever worked in a restaurant, grocery store, ect have seen first hand the sheer amount of perfectly good food that is just thrown away when there's hungry people all around those locations who would gladly take it. Though on that note abortion should never be considered something as a tool of population control, that's what condoms, pills and ect are for.
WOw thats very interesting. But yes i didnt mean it in the perspective of draining our planet anymore but im saying that a life is a life created and there are ways to prevent and unwanted gift.
I'm glad we agree on that. Potential becomes a person after it becomes conscious. And as I said in my PM reply to you, potential has no rights. After all, how can "nothing" have rights?
After this thread I understand better than ever before the difference between pro-choice and pro-life view points. Pro-life views a united egg and sperm as a live person because it is growing on it's own volition, only using the mother for energy. Pro-choice does not view the fetus as a live person until after birth. In my opinion, an egg has potential and sperm has potential. They are not a person until they are united. Of course the egg and the sperm have no rights; on their own they will die in a few days. But once they are united they grow and are alive. So far as the resources required to support people, I always thought mother nature would take care of itself, balancing the number of people on earth with the number that can be supported. I don't think we need to start killing off people because we don't have enough resources. Somebody told me a few years back that all the Americans living in America would fit in Alaska.
Timely subject here. Last night, Chris Matthews on MSNBC had a segment on a proposed state law in Mississippi that would define the beginning of human life as the moment of conception. If passed, the law would open up a legal, medical, and practical can of worms that would takes years to sort out. It would make unscrambling an egg look simple. For example, the IUD would become illegal in that state, even for short-term visitors, because it kills fertilized eggs. Would women who use an IUD need to have them removed for an airplane flight that passes through Mississippi airspace? And should the federal government allow each state to have a different policy on something that could make travel so complicated? Imagine booking a flight from New York to San Francisco and having to research the laws of every state you might fly over, to see what kind of birth control you can legally have with you or in your body. Each state wouldn't automatically know what your situation is, but it could become known if you required emergency medical treatment. The fetus would have all the legal rights of an adult under this law, so pregnant women would be legally required to do everything possible to insure optimum conditions for the tiny 'adult' inside her, as I brought up in an earlier post. I have no way of knowing how far the State would want to take this, but carried to its logical extreme, it would have to ban females between puberty and menopause from consuming alcohol, since any of us could be pregnant at any time and not know it. Well...virgins are almost surely not pregnant, but I don't foresee having bar and club bouncers checking hymens when they check ID at the door. (Dream on, bouncers!) I would assume that this law would (indirectly) require death certificates for all known miscarriages, and transfer of the bodies to a licensed funeral home, for burial or cremation. I'm not sure that the lawmakers have thought through all the implications of this. Every used tampon or maxi pad could potentially contain the dead body of a legally defined human being. Should they be treated in some special way? As you logically play this out in your head, surely you can see we are headed in an absurd direction with this law. The law contradicts the standard medical definition of the word 'pregnant' as it is currently defined by the American Medical Association. The AMA says that a woman becomes pregnant when a fertilized egg attaches to the uterine wall. (What does this mean for tubal pregnancies?) A big practical problem with this change is that there is no medical test that can tell a doctor when a fertilized egg is present, but has not attached. There seems little hope of developing such a test. Chris Matthews brought up another problem with this definition of life that none of us had thought of yet; an issue that many pro-lifers will have mixed feelings about. It would make in vitro fertilization impractical, meaning that many infertile women would no longer have any realistic chance of having a baby. In vitro involves fertilizing a number of eggs in the laboratory, implanting one or more of the embryos that appear to be the strongest and have the best chance of survival in the womb. Under the Mississippi law, none of the many weak embryos could be discarded (infertile couples tend to produce a lot of those). Fertilizing one egg in the laboratory at a time and implanting it would be too expensive, too slow, and unlikely to succeed, so it would no longer be a viable option in that state. This is a lot to think about! :willy_nilly:
