[Politics] Abortion Failure Megathread

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 2:21 am

Please move all discussions about abortion to this troll trap thread. Thanks in advance.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 4:45 am

Wait, if you ask nicely then people do things?

Cool. PR, please leave again and this time, never come back. Thanks.

Count Arioch the 28th · Tue Jun 28, 2011 12:50 pm

Let me get this rolling:

Neither side of the abortion debate can be defended from a moral perspective.

If you are pro-life, you are demanding that everyone suffer for your beliefs.

If you are pro choice, you are sacrificing living things to improve your standard of living.

There, that should get things flaming.

TOZ · Post by **TOZ** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 12:53 pm

Nice summary, Count.

MfA · Post by **MfA** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 1:09 pm

I'm not a vegetarian ... sentient things are sacrificed daily to improve my standard of living, let alone living things.

Gnosticism Is A Hoot · Tue Jun 28, 2011 1:33 pm

MfA wrote:I'm not a vegetarian ... sentient things are sacrificed daily to improve my standard of living, let alone living things.

Quite.

The question is not whether the foetus is 'alive', because all of us (yes, even vegetarians) exist by killing living things.

The question is not whether the foetus is 'human', because no doctor in the world will hesitate to kill human cells of many kinds in order to save a patient.

The question is whether the foetus is a person, with all of the attendant moral and legal rights, and it's pretty easy to turn this question into a total philosophical mindfuck if you lose sight of the welfare of actual sentient human beings.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 1:41 pm

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:If you are pro-life, you are demanding that everyone suffer for your beliefs.

If you are pro choice, you are sacrificing living things to improve your standard of living.

While a shallow and somewhat misleading summary it is close enough to say this.

One of those things is better than the other. A lot better. Because one of them is about real improvements to real peoples real lives. The other is about grabbing your dick in hand and demanding that whatever the cost the world worship it as a god.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 1:55 pm

Is it amazing to anyone else that the United States has like one legal late-term abortion doctor? Not one per state, but one in all fifty states. That's just bizarre to me. You know there's a demand, and there have to be a certain statistical number of cases where late term abortion is practical for the health of the mother...you'd think there would be more.

Gnosticism Is A Hoot · Tue Jun 28, 2011 2:00 pm

Ancient History wrote:Is it amazing to anyone else that the United States has like one legal late-term abortion doctor? Not one per state, but one in all fifty states. That's just bizarre to me. You know there's a demand, and there have to be a certain statistical number of cases where late term abortion is practical for the health of the mother...you'd think there would be more.

There used to be more, but then some pro-life folks shot them in the head.

EDIT: And more generally, the amount of harassment faced by late-term abortion providers is utterly insane. There's a serious sickness in the bowels of the American pro-life movement.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 2:01 pm

There used to be two, but one of them was murdered by a Christian Wackjob.

wotmaniac · Post by **wotmaniac** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 2:11 pm

sabs wrote:There used to be two, but one of them was murdered by a Christian Wackjob.

ftfy. seriously.

as I see it, there needs to be a clear definition of terms.
murder = killing a living human being
living human being = human DNA + heartbeat (seems fairly straight forward to me)
human fetus develops own heartbeat after around day 35.

the "pro-life"-ers aren't just religious control freaks ... it's about protecting the rights of those without a voice/choice in the matter.

oh, and for a tangential side-note: Planned Parenthood was started by a eugenicist, who explicitly started the organization to try to get rid of poor/minorities. just some food for thought.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 2:28 pm

The guy said he killed him because God was on his side.
He did it because God wanted him to save the children.

That makes him a Christian Wackjob.
Sorry if that offends you.

Most women don't even KNOW they are pregnant by day 35.
I have no problem with someone to choose an abortion up into the 2nd trimester. Once the baby is old enough that there is a real chance of survival outside the womb, then I have more of an issue with it, except for valid health reasons (Which exist)

Personally, I'd never want an abortion, and it would be a deal breaker for me in a relationship. But that's ME.. that doesn't mean I get to make that choice for other people.

A fetus has no rights, save those conveyed to it by it's mother. I would rather have someone abort the next Albert Enstein, then force some woman to have a baby she doesn't want (for what ever reason).

Pro-Lifers should spend more time helping with sex education, teen outreach programs, adoption programs, and less time shouting hate at a 15 year old who got pregnant because she believed her dumb ass boyfriend that you can't get pregnant if you have sex in a hot tub.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 2:35 pm

wotmaniac wrote: living human being = human DNA + heartbeat (seems fairly straight forward to me)

So, how does this work for people who recently suffered a heart attack (or whatever) and CPR? Or do you mean that distinction only pertains to those inside the womb?

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 2:46 pm

sabs wrote:The guy said he killed him because God was on his side.
He did it because God wanted him to save the children.

That makes him a Christian Wackjob.
Sorry if that offends you.

I'll nit pick here because I find the study of wackjobs fascinating. Your argument actually supports a Theist Wackjob as opposed to a specific type of Theist. If he used specific Christian arguments in his case then could apply the Christian label. he probably did, but that's not your argument.

In general any X Wackjob probably fucks up any association with X because being a wackjob he doesn't understand X from shit.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 2:48 pm

P.S. I'm not going to talk about abortion here just to annoy P.R.

Gnosticism Is A Hoot · Tue Jun 28, 2011 2:50 pm

oh, and for a tangential side-note: Planned Parenthood was started by a eugenicist, who explicitly started the organization to try to get rid of poor/minorities. just some food for thought.

So the fuck what? America was founded by slave-raping slave rapers. Take your genetic fallacy elsewhere.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 10:01 pm

So. Serious question time.

Suppose that you as a pro-lifer totally got your way on this issue. No compromise, you get everything exactly the way you wanted it as far as the law is concerned. What should be the punishment for aborting a fetus? Should the punishment be increased the further along said fetus is in the pregnancy? What exceptions will you allow if any?

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 10:22 pm

Abortion is totally killing a living human being, arguing about that is pointless.

But, I'm pretty sure that here in the US of A I have the self-evident right to shoot uninvited intruders in the face when they refuse to leave my domicile after fair warning. I'll probably have to go to trial to justify that such actions were actually in self-defense, but I'm pretty sure I could convince most juries that an intruder I found in my wife's vagina and drinking her blood and who didn't leave despite weeks of warning was fair game.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 10:23 pm

Lago they NEVER answer that question. Never.

Talking about how they would punish women who get abortions in their abortion free utopia... confuses them, but they know on some level it makes them look bad, so they just don't do it.

K · Post by K » Tue Jun 28, 2011 11:25 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:So. Serious question time.

Suppose that you as a pro-lifer totally got your way on this issue. No compromise, you get everything exactly the way you wanted it as far as the law is concerned. What should be the punishment for aborting a fetus? Should the punishment be increased the further along said fetus is in the pregnancy? What exceptions will you allow if any?

No die-hard pro-lifer will allow exceptions. Even if it's done to save the life of the mother, they want murder charges for everyone. That's not a strawman, but actual laws that people keep trying to put on the books every damned year in dozens of states.

I think the more important question is what would happen if they actually get their wish. Considering that around 15% of illegal abortions result in the death of the mother and a little under half require medical attention from complications, we can see that we'd be choosing to kill mothers and all the kids they'd have had. Plus, there is all that emergency medical care, therefor it would both wasteful of tax dollars and incredibly evil.

Romania outlawed abortions and created one of the most horrific systems of orphanages in the world to handle the flood of unwanted children and the estimates of the number of women killed in illegal abortions numbers in the tens of thousands.

Estimates for the US say that we'd be killing at least 10K women a year by making abortion illegal.

It's not that the pro-life movement is morally wrong, they are actually stupid. Women that have abortions also have children later in life, but pro-lifers would rather punish "evil" women with death rather than let them live long enough to have children.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Wed Jun 29, 2011 12:16 am

K wrote:
Lago PARANOIA wrote:So. Serious question time.

Suppose that you as a pro-lifer totally got your way on this issue. No compromise, you get everything exactly the way you wanted it as far as the law is concerned. What should be the punishment for aborting a fetus? Should the punishment be increased the further along said fetus is in the pregnancy? What exceptions will you allow if any?
No die-hard pro-lifer will allow exceptions. Even if it's done to save the life of the mother, they want murder charges for everyone. That's not a strawman, but actual laws that people keep trying to put on the books every damned year in dozens of states.

I think the more important question is what would happen if they actually get their wish. Considering that around 15% of illegal abortions result in the death of the mother and a little under half require medical attention from complications, we can see that we'd be choosing to kill mothers and all the kids they'd have had. Plus, there is all that emergency medical care, therefor it would both wasteful of tax dollars and incredibly evil.

Romania outlawed abortions and created one of the most horrific systems of orphanages in the world to handle the flood of unwanted children and the estimates of the number of women killed in illegal abortions numbers in the tens of thousands.

Estimates for the US say that we'd be killing at least 10K women a year by making abortion illegal.

It's not that the pro-life movement is morally wrong, they are actually stupid. Women that have abortions also have children later in life, but pro-lifers would rather punish "evil" women with death rather than let them live long enough to have children.

This makes the assumption that pro-lifers seek to bring as many children into the world as possible. The argument I'm familiar with is that once conceived, a child is considered to be brought into this world, and taking them out of it is thus morally wrong.

Although, honestly, I have no idea where I stand on this issue. All I know for sure is that the extremists are stupid, but that's almost tautologically obvious.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:02 am

My feeling is...outlawing abortions won't stop them. It will make them more difficult to come by, yes, and it will make women desperate to have them. Desperate people do risky, dangerous things. So while abortions will grow fewer, they will still occur - and because they are desperate, and because their options are few, the conditions will worsen. As it is, the government can at least mandate the performance of abortions in a relatively clean place, by someone who certified to know what they are doing, and there is less risk to the health of the mother. If the practice is outlawed, those guarantees will disappear.

And while I dislike and disapprove of those who use an abortion as after-the-fact birth control - well, I remember that there are those who conceive from rape, and from incest. Who become pregnant in their early teenage years, and even younger. Who cannot survive childbirth, or who having done so cannot afford to raise a child that was forced on them. Who face the terrible knowledge that the fetus has a genetic illness or condition which is crippling, lifelong, and beyond the remedy of medicine to repair - so malformed that they will not survive, or if they do survive, will be confined forever to institutions and special care.

While I would like to legislate in the perfect world where every conception is loving, the parent(s) willing and able to care for the child, and that every conception results in a perfect, normal, healthy baby - well, we don't live in that world. This is a world where a 9 year-old-girl is abused by a family member and becomes pregnant with twins, and the doctor that agrees to perform the abortion is excommunicated. This is a world where a woman walks into the emergency room after a botched abortion, and what the nurse on duty thought was the umbilical cord hanging out from between her legs was in fact a length of intestine. It is better to have abortion available as an option, to deal with the worst situations, than to deny it to everyone and hope for the best.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Wed Jun 29, 2011 2:19 am

I think that's a great post, Ancient History.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:05 pm

Chamomile wrote:The argument I'm familiar with is that once conceived, a child is considered to be brought into this world, and taking them out of it is thus morally wrong.

The idea that personhood begins at genetic completeness is not only a bad understanding of basic biology (otherwise I killed hundreds of thousands of pwecious babies when I jerked off to the Newsweek magazine this morning) but also religious bigotry.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Wed Jun 29, 2011 2:15 pm

WHat's worse is ultimately even the "...because life begins at conception!" angle is actually a deception by the pro life movement.

Because they don't actually give a shit when life begins. What they care about is you having recreational sex at all and you using contraception at all[/i] and having sex outside of marriage at all. Especially if you are a woman. Or young. Or worst of all, both.

Never let the more ludicrous directions (like the conception thing) they flail in while trying to justify their position distract you. Pro lifers are about one thing and one thing only. Religious control of your bedroom and women that go near it.