Pro-Choice and Anti-Capital Punishment?

I know we're on opposite sides of the issue, Billy and I appreciate and respect your viewpoints - but I'm not willing to give up mine.

"Should?" Often.

I dont have any figures to dispute this handy and I aint going to bother to look them up, but I would not trust "About.com" (an advertising site) for information about anything at all.

I think it likley that in todays much more selfish world that the percentage of "convienience" abortions *has* possibly risen, but I stand by my statement that overall, in most surveys that have been done on the topic since abortions were legalised in North America, that abortions are not used as birth control to any large degree and are *not* frivolously done. Certainly not in any civilised country.

I don't know how they do it in the states, but up here an abortion is done by a regular doctor, and the mother in question is not just given one "willy-nilly." All such decisions are carefully made by qualified professionals and the mother is given every oportunity to explore all her options including adoption. Perhaps down there they have drive-through abortion clinics? I dont know.

My main point also still stands. The idea that "convience abortions" by essentially irresponsible crack-head mothers and selfish girls worried about their figure are "rampant," is a gross misrepresentation of the facts and a key plank in the whole Pro-Life propoganda agenda.

My other main point (and I see Chip is making similar arguments), that a fetus is *not* a baby (only a baby is acutally a baby , duh). This is not so much a point of argument, as it is a simple fact. The way in which you and others are willfully switching the terms back and forth and claiming that aborting a fetus is equivalent to murdering a baby just confuses the issue and makes your arguments look assinine.

I know you usually get all mad and huffy at this point so I will give you a distraction by stirring the pot even further....

I *love* babies and children. That being said, I also believe in "baby murdering" as you put it. I believe that crippled babies and babies born with serious birth defects should be aborted prior to birth if possible and *euthanised* at birth if the defect is only discovered at that time. To me this is the most humane and sensible thing that could be done, so try thinking on that for a while.

As with the atheist debate, you should be aware that there are good and kind people in the world who just think differently on these topics than your bible-soaked brain does. I am a good person, I know I am. I am reasonably certain that Chip and millons of other heathens are good people as well. Just because we don't believe a fetus is a baby or that it's wrong to stop several lifetimes of agony with a simple descision like abortion (or indeed euthanasia), doesn't make us evil or bad or any of that shit.

You need to grow some serious tolerance for other peoples cultures and beliefs and stop trying to force your rightwing Christian viewpoint on the world as if it is some kind of absolute truth. It isn't.

Ah, but you do draw a line. I presume that you participate in a democracy of laws, and as such, you have tacitly agreed that yes, drawing lines for other people's conduct is part of the program. Unless perhaps you are a dissenting anarchist, or plotting a revolution.

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Do we all agree that killing a child, once it is born, is murder? I doubt it. Brain-dead newborns are killed all the time, in many parts of the world. Including the United States, I do believe.

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I am about as 'pro-choice' as I am atheist - I recall you have a fairly unorthodox definition of 'agnostic' which puts me in the atheist camp as well. I'm not terribly worried by this.

Yes, there are cases where I think an abortion is the lesser of tragedies. I suppose that excludes me from the ideal 'pro-life' camp.

Yet, I am not afraid to openly call 'bullshit' when the tragedy is having both parents shape up, get responsible and raise their child.



For those who would understand the reference:

"Life is a Cabaret, old chum,
Come to the Cabaret."

That is not representative of the situation and proves absolutely nothing

Look at suicide rates. Obviously, there are people who have decided exactly the opposite.

Ah, forgive me, but it was I that invoked the statistics from About.com.

While I agree that it may be faulty, I'm open to any other neutral statistics source. I am certainly not an element of the Christian Right.



With regard to frivolous abortions - yes, this runs in direct contradiction to my personal experience with at least two cases in the United States.

"Willy-nilly" would be putting it mildly - and drive-through is a remarkably apt term. Imagine being home without missing dinner or prime time television, and you would have it about right.

The experiences were almost identical to Ms Cannoli's, except perhaps a bit more streamlined. Admittedly, one was approximately twenty years ago.

Didn't mean to paste you Desmond.

I know that even though I don't agree with your point of view, you are still ready to think about this and are not a far right pro-lifer yourself.

It's just not helpful to me to have *some* people always bring in religion (and always chirstian religion at that) and religious points of view into these debates and present that view as if it was some kind of fact instead of just the personal opinion or bias that it really is. You can't debate properly against bias like that.

Because rape does happen, abortion should be allowed. (not the only reason it should be allowed, by the way, as I asserted in the rest of my post, but rape is one VERY good justification for allowing abortion.)

Most women who have gotten abortions had to pay several hundred if not several thousand dollars to do so. Sometimes they have done this to avoid honour killings. Sometimes they have done this to remain marriageable. Sometimes because being pregnant for 9 months would change their lives in a way they cannot presently sustain. Sometimes because they are drug or alcohol addicted and will give birth to a potentially severely disabled child and unable to care for said child. I have never met a woman who made that decision lightly.

Abortion is legal, for now. I'd like to see it stay that way. If the law changes I'll be voting and advocating for candidates who will work to restore it.



A brain-dead child is, for all intents and purposes, already dead. That aside, when it comes to the already born, I assume our views are probably fairly close to each other.



Once you make it conditional you've made a choice that allows abortion under certain circumstances, based on your own personal feelings on the issue. People like to hide behind semantics. You may draw the line in a different spot than I do but you're still prepared to allow abortion when you feel it is necessary. I've already stated elsewhere in the thread that I personally would find it difficult to abort an unborn child that was my own, so the differences between us are being highly exaggerated by rhetoric, as is often the case when people try to imply their position is one of moral superiority.



Indeed it does.



Nor am I, but whoever those parents are they are not my slaves. I am not their king. I can opine on the subject all I want, but it's not my place to make the decision for them or to take away their ability to make it for themselves.

Ok, I'll chime in and say that I think the contradiction mentioned as the start of this thread is not a contradiction at all. They are simply two different subjects. On the other hand, people who argue against abortion on the basis of the Commandments and then are willing to support capital punishment are being deeply contradictory.

I thought I'd explain my own positions but I'd rather just tweak people with a strange idea:

What if it was perfectly legal for a doctor to perform an abortion and could not be prosecuted for providing proper medical care to a woman desiring an abortion... but getting an abortion meant a legal penalty of some kind?

I struggle with this issue, because I think (except in cases of rape) that getting pregnant when it is so thoroughly unwanted is criminally irresponsible. Maybe I don't understand because sex to me is not ever something that "just happened". But is someone willing to be that careless really a good bet for parenthood? Better for all concerned if the problem just goes away, huh?

For me the balance of evils falls in favor of legal abortion for this simple reason: You don't actually have a seperate being until somewhere around birth. It is at this point that the spirit assumes possession of the new body - prior to that you're dealing with life, but not an actual human being. For some reason most people don't remember that they did this. It's a shameful subject I guess.

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Another part of this I struggle with: that any woman should find herself in the position where having an abortion seems necessary, regardless of her age or relationship circumstances. This exposes just how cold and cruel this world really is. How heartless is it that her family and friends will not support her and make sure that she and her child have what they need to live a decent life? Why is a baby ever considered a tragedy? We are really a long way away from anything resembling a true civilization.

Why is it that anything you have to say is somehow solid, but other opinions are propoganda? Talk about your assinine arguments. Convenience abortions don't just include crack heads and girls who don't want to get fat. They include any abortion that is taking place simply because having a child right now would be inconvenient for the mother. It is an abortion of convenience, and they happen quite frequently.



Using "duh" is never the sign of a great argument either, but is instead rather childish. If you think that a fetus is not a baby, then I assume you are fine with abortions right up to the moment of birth, yes? Certainly you must be, because before that, apparently it is not a human life, a baby, or a child. It is simple a fetus, a cold clinical term used to remove all humanity from it. You might as well be talking about a yolk of an egg. So when a mother gives birth, then you have a baby, but 5 minutes before, it's just a bunch of genetic material that can be discarded at will, apparently. Semantics are fun!



Again, where has the bible or Christianity been mentioned in this thread? The only people who are insistent upon making it about religion seem to be the ones who think you can't possibly consider life sacred, or that life begins at conception, unless you are some right wing whack job. It's just an attempt to marginalize the position, to claim it is just born out of religious indoctrination and Jesus-group think. Well news flash - it is not a religious issue, it is a human issue. You can be athiest and still believe that it is wrong to end human life. If you want to have serious discussion about this, then lose the hyperbole about religion, as you are the one entering God, the bible, etc... into this. You show zero tolerance yourself, referring to people as having a bible-soaked brain. What a fucking joke. Your think your truth is absolute, I would imagine.

Semantics are pointless. If you prefer the words babies, children, and murder, fine. I am fully comfortable with murdering babies and children right up until the moment of birth, or even after birth in the case of severe birth defects which would cause the child to have a miserable life. Forcing that child to live and its parents to bear that burden to satisfy your subjective morality is inhumane.

Further, once that child becomes an adult capable of making informed rational decisions, I fully support allowing that person to decide to have a doctor murder them at any time during the rest of their life.

You use the situation of birth defects to establish your humanity. What about a perfectly healthy baby that just gets put to death because the mother decides "oops, I want to wait a little while yet, sorry!". It's not about subjective morality any more than saying not killing your neighbor is about subjective morality. The life inside a woman is a separate life, not hers to do with as she pleases, in my opinion. As I said earlier, I would not change the laws because human nature being what it is, women will still do whatever they can to get rid of a child they don't want. However, I find the practice of putting a child to death because it is inconvenient to be horrific. Your mileage may vary.

Let's also not kid ourselves that abortions are some gentle procedure where the child is treated with dignity, as they would be in the case of being euthanised after birth. Abortions are horrific and brutal, especially later in pregnancy. Do you think there should be no limits on a woman's ability to get an abortion at any time up to the point of birth?

It's completely about subjective morality and sentimentality. In the case of a simple "oops" at the time of birth, that's a tougher one. Rationally I don't really have a problem with it. Five minutes of life isn't a lot to lose. We're just squeamish about it because at that point we can see it all pink and cute and screaming. It's the same reason that some people are fine with early abortions but not late term. It looks too human then and that makes people too uncomfortable.

No one's pretending that abortion isn't ending a human life so you're wasting your breath accusing anyone of trying to feign humanity (and you're a bit of an ass for questioning it at all), but in order to even have this discussion without people of your opinion going apoplectic and no longer listening, semantics are employed... in the exact same way you employ them in order to bolster the moral/sentimental basis for your position. I've been surprised at how your own debating style on this topic is highly emotional bordering on irrational with no consideration for anyone else's opinion. Quite unlike what I'm used to from you. I get the impression you created this thread to lecture to people rather than for the discussion you pretended to want.

All human life is not equally precious. The living take precedence over the unborn. The life of someone with 19 or 30 or 80 years of living behind them and all the resultant accumulated experience, knowledge, emotion, and aspiration outweighs that of someone who's done no living, has no knowledge, has no emotion other than "holy shit where the hell am I?!", and has no aspirations. That is my honest opinion. Now please do carry on telling me what a horrible person I am.

One other thing... one of the primary differences between your argument and mine, and indeed between pretty much everyone on the pro-life side as opposed to those who are pro-choice, is this...

The pro-choice position isn't based on emotion, sentimentality, or romanticizing potentialities of things that haven't happened yet. The pro-life argument is based almost exclusively on them.

Many who commit suicide are from wealthy families who were not deprived in any way as a child. People with great, loving parents. It's a mental illness. Mentally healthy people don't kill themselves.

Have you ever noticed the poor seem to be happier than the rich in many cases?

Being poor isn't a bad thing. Having crappy parents is better than being killed.

Do address this point Cristiano, as I have been wondering, given your high emotions, what the purpose of this thread is.

~Ulrika~

Where do you get this utter poppycock from? Oh right. You're making it up as you go.

~Ulrika~

I would disagree.

Many people over 65 would choose to lose their own life, without hesitation, before that of their grandson or granddaughter. Born or unborn.

In some cultures, on a sinking ship, there is an expression: 'women and children first'.

An able-bodied, educated man may very arguably be 'worth' more to society than a pregnant woman, but most men would never consider taking her place on a lifeboat. Doubly so if she's pregnant.

Sexist? Admittedly, yes. But honest.

Oh absolutely, and I fully support their right to lose their own life whenever they so choose. I do not support their right to decide on the fate of their unborn grandchildren unless they're prepared to become its primary caregiver. If so, great. Problem solved.

My position is not sentimental or moral - it comes down to when you think human life begins. My believing that it begins upon conception, and knowing that parents looking at an ultrasound of their unborn baby (note they don't often say "come look at my fetus!", I recognize that is a life. It is why I find abortion itself abhorrent. If finding the destruction of life for convenience to be appalling. It doesn't bother you, yet I haven't said that makes you a bad person but you are certainly quick to attack me.

The very first person to raise the semantics card was Selador, not myself. Dianne has also made issue out of it, both by saying that referring to it as a baby is manipulative. I simply countered so is referring to it as a fetus, but only those who consider it a baby are playing the manipulative semantics game according to you. That is what I am pushing back against - that is utterly hypocritical. Call me an ass if you want - I find your "it's not my responsibility" argument to be pretty stupid myself. To each their own. The people who have derailed this discussion, which has been interesting for the most part, would be people throwing religion into the mix. Nowhere in my original post did I say anything about God, religion, etc. I asked how the two stances are not in opposition. I still think no great answer has been given to that question, but I doubt people will ever agree on this issue. It is too polarizing. Don't you dare tell me I am pretending to do anything - you don't know my motivations.



Please find anywhere in this thread where I have called anyone a horrible person. Go on, I'll wait.

Although I support keeping abortion legal and medically safe, I can't extend that feeling to any form of euthanasia or killing of a person capable of self-contained life. Just as it is not the government's business to control what goes on inside a woman's body, it is not the business of government or parents or family to decide for another person whether they should live once they are here. Quality of life is a matter for the individual to judge. Killing of babies born, if they are at all capable of living, is murder. The same goes for the elderly.

Similarly, though, if someone makes specific provisions for suicide in cases of terminal illness, I support their right to make that individual decision. It's all about the right to control one's own life.

To those who think a baby should be killed because it has a birth defect, I ask what right is it of yours to decide whether this person will have a good life? It is up to them.

I am not emotional at all, actually. The purpose of this thread was to try to understand a position of thought that I have never been able to wrap my mind around. I see know it is probably impossible, given the polarizing nature of the topic, and the behavior fo some people. However, it was an honest attempt at understanding, not some feigned attempt at browbeating people which is insulting and low.

Here's another wrinkle in the problems with the death penalty. Two of my positions against it were already mentioned: It doesn't cost less to execute someone than it does to imprison them for life; and it gives them no chance for personal redemption.

My own viewpoint on the purpose of prisons is that they are not necessarily for punishment or for rehabilitation, but rather a place to stick people when they have proven themselves a danger to society. Once they are there, you kind of hope they manage to be reformed, but as far as society is concerned the benefit is just to keep them safely tucked away.

So what about the death penalty? This is actually a get-out-of-jail-free card! By dying early, the criminal dodges rehabilitation, makes no amends, but just gets recycled right back into the world in a brand new life continuing to bear the burden of past crimes, unrepentant. Police will just be dragging him out of the crime scenes again a couple of decades down the road. Much better to let him rot for 50-60 years, and keep hoping he'll turn his life around.

Whether you buy that or not, let me ask why a government should ever be allowed to kill its own citizens when it doesn't have to? Do you really think a psychotic loon gunning down his family stops to consider whether death is better than living in a jail cell for the rest of his life?

Welome to my signature!